Parchment tribute site

Light Up the Fire - Schools version

2012-01-21T22:59:00.003Z

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

2012-01-19T23:10:00.001Z

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

2011-12-21T00:59:00.001Z

"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

2011-11-22T17:08:00.001Z

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

2011-11-12T00:17:00.001Z

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

2011-09-09T19:43:00.002Z

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?

2011-09-05T16:48:00.000Z

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

2011-06-13T19:03:00.002Z

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

2011-04-24T22:00:00.000Z

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

2011-03-06T00:54:00.002Z

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

2011-02-14T21:31:00.006Z

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

2011-01-14T02:35:00.002Z

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

2011-01-03T23:38:00.001Z

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?

2010-12-31T16:36:00.004Z

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

2010-12-18T13:38:00.002Z

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?

2010-12-01T22:22:00.003Z

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

2010-08-19T19:20:00.001Z

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

2010-06-11T00:06:00.000Z

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!

2010-05-13T23:08:00.002Z

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.

Some updates

2010-02-15T22:11:00.001Z

There's been quite a lot of activity involving two of the bands we've been taking an interest in.

Firstly Caedmon have announced plans for the first live gigs of the reunited band. They are to take place in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 7th and the 8th. Details on their website. Looking forward to it!

Caedmon have also now made all the tracks of their original, highly valued album available for listening on their site - along with some of their new material.

Dana Lee Winner, formerly Dana Lee Price, has also made many of the Dave and Dana songs available for listening on her website. There are 13 tracks from the original albums together with some of her new material. At a guess, I think it is all the original material written by the duo - with the covers of other artists omitted, presumably for copyright reasons. That means you get amazing tracks like Come on In, He's Not a Rumour and Right Track but you still have to find the albums to listen to equally amazing versions of songs like Empty-Handed and Still Waters.

Our tracking shows that, even though it's four months since we last posted anything, interest in Parchment and their legacy is still high with many daily visits to this site. Let's hope this encourages others!

Dave and Dana - the complete discography

2009-10-25T18:36:00.002Z

Satisfied - Bradley Recording Company,1975
Come on In, Pilgrim - 1976
Morning Star, Grapevine - 1978
Right Track, Rivendell - 1980
Be Still, cassette only - 198?

Some great new music by Dana Lee Price, now Dana Winner, can be found at her website here.

We know this because Dana has been on the site this weekend, sharing some of the history of the duo and her experience of working with Sue McClellan and Grapevine. Her postings are here and here.
Last year we heard from the other half of the duo, Dave Price - details here.

* Additional note: Come on in is now available as a download at The Ancient Star Song.

Some Grapevine downloads

2009-08-06T19:54:00.002Z

The Ancient Star Song has been busy uploading a number of rare Jesus music albums from the 1970s and early 80s including two Grapevine productions.

These are:
Alan Shiers Lamplighter 1980 GRV135
Sonrise Before My Eyes 1976 GRV105

There is also an album from Grapevine's parent label Pilgrim, which used the Parchment members as its production team during this period.
Resurrection Plain Or Salted 1977 Pilgrim 434

New music from Caedmon!

2009-06-28T10:08:00.003Z

More fantastic news about Caedmon, the second most obscure band of the 70s and the alternative acid folk gospel band from the period, a kind of parallel Parchment from Edinburgh.

The reformed band has laid down four full tracks and you can hear them on their Myspace site along with some of the originals (Aslan, Beyond the Second Mile, Maker Man). There is every indication they might produce work as good as the original.

This was our report of their reunion last year

Carol, John and Aubrey

2009-06-19T21:24:00.000Z

This folk trio feature on the Sound Vision in Concert album with Trinity Folk. We did a feature on Sound Vision in November and mentioned the work of Carol, John and Aubrey. Now Aubrey has visited the site with some info. It seems they all hail from Essex, UK.

Green Anthem

2009-05-04T20:48:00.001Z

A copy of Reynard's Green Anthem just sold on e-bay for £51. This was the first time I've seen a cover shot of the Liverpool electric folk band's second album, released in 1979, and featuring classics such as Leviathan, Gadera Moor and Angel Wings.

A YouTube tribute

2009-04-11T21:32:00.000Z

This may be the first tribute to the band on YouTube. The song, Don't Let the Morning Come, is from Shamblejam.

Spring is sprung

2009-03-29T12:47:00.000Z

Today is a glorious spring day in the UK and what better way to celebrate it than to get out the old copy of Light Up the Fire - the album - or even the CD, get out the elderflower cordial and give it a spin at full volume. It just reeks of spring.

From the moment when "colours of day dawn into the mind" , we're off through the park and letting the fruit grow.

Then it's over by the waterfall/ I'll come when I hear you call/ at your next convenient sunrise.

In the park it's time to ride on the roundabout and very soon the green blade rises, the greatest spring song of all.

Then we're looking forward to the carelessness of summer (it's a cheating game to play) and heralding summer's coming and the warm smile of the sun.

And all the while the mandolin hums and the guitars strum and pluck out melodies. The sound has never been bettered!

Light Up the Fire launched!

2009-02-26T15:58:00.003Z

There was a time when members of Parchment performed together as a band and there was no song called Light Up the Fire in their repertoire. They were known as Trinity Folk. This is a cutting from a Buzz special in 1972 when the band, newly renamed Parchment, discussed the release of their first single, which was "not really representative" of their style.

Great picture of the band too. Note the dobro, mandolin and guitar.

The Archivist

2009-02-26T15:57:00.001Z

The Archivist is a remarkable collection of reviews of "Jesus Music", spanning 1965-1980, produced by a man called Ken Scott.

I can't find out how many albums he reviews but estimate it is about 3,000. His latest edition, just out, includes 800 additional reviews. You can find it here and purchase it from the Lulu service.

His review of Parchment begins "the group would... contribute four essential lps of British progressive folk-rock". The words have been widely quoted on the web.

I bought the latest edition in the hope of plugging some of the holes about the Grapevine label. Astonishingly, despite high praise for Grapevine's output, he has not managed to collect the whole label. For instance the terrific Unity is missing and coverage of the parent Pilgrim label is also patchy. In spite of that Archivist is a remarkable treasurehouse of information about the output of this era, full of interesting judgements. For instance Whitsuntide Easter is a "Dutch heavy acid folk monster" that's by far the "best LP on this great UK label".

So I'll be drawing on it over the course of the year, especially as I have several Grapevine album reviews to post.

pf

Another Dave and Dana

2009-01-29T13:17:00.015Z

A curiosity I came across some time ago when tracking down Grapevine duo Dave and Dana's excellent albums.

I had found four albums, and then a fifth album came up called Dave and Dana R Victorious. This was stored in the University of Florida Library. It turned out there was another gospel duo called Dave and Dana, Dave Van Cise and Dana Arnold, and it was they who had recorded this eight song album. The album cover shows the duo, "clad in white, holding hands and smiling at the camera," the library said. It was recorded by the Dove Gospel Recording Service in Florida and undated.

Review of 2008

2009-01-04T16:07:00.000Z

My thanks first of all to those who contributed and helped with the site last year, notably John Pac of Parchment and former Parchment roadie Dixie Dean.

The big story of 2008 was the discovery of the lost third album. John Pac announced it with four words "it's lost no more". This site was privileged to get a listen of the missing album and John later supplied full details of authorship of the tracks. You can follow the story of the discovery here.

This opened up new by-ways, especially evidence of the strong influence that Ry Cooder had on the band's choice of material. And journeys on YouTube also led to a video of the original writer of Pack Up Your Sorrows, Richard Farina, performing the song. Sadly the video was withdrawn shortly afterwards for copyright reasons.

The other big event of the year was the reunion of the band Caedmon - the 'other' Xian acid folk band. It's members flocked onto the site to to tell their stories before setting up their own website. There was no obvious direct link to Parchment but one was soon discovered!

We continued, slowly, cataloguing the material that's gathered on this site. It can be found here.

And we continued to explore the Grapevine label, which the members of Parchment ran in the late 1970s. The discovery of the year was MCC's exquisite Thursday's Child has Far to Go - although the first Grapevine album Ride! Ride! turned out to have an interesting story. And Grapevine star Dave Price popped up to tell us where he was.

Wishlist for 2009? First of all that it will be as interesting and eventful for this site as 2008 and 2007. Secondly, that a way will be found to circulate the lost album. Thirdly, another big find - perhaps some live footage or bootleg sound of the band performing?

And as time permits I will post other archive material and continue to pursue threads that grab my attention.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T16:54:00.000Z

A year ago I set out a number of resolutions for this site and sadly many of them were never fulfilled. But it didn't matter because a great many other things happened and 2008 proved just as interesting a year as 2007.

Let's look first at what I set out to do:

I promised to post more material from Buzz. Sorry, haven't got round to it.
I called for more reviews of Parchment's work and indeed found an intriguing blog review of Shamblejam. And there were features on one or two of the band's songs.
I wanted to continue to find out about the Grapevine label and its artists - and yes, that enjoyable search has carried on.
I wanted to know more about Trinity Folk, the first incarnation of Parchment. Maybe one or two clues emerged but there's still a story waiting to be told.
And then there was Roundabout 2008, part of Liverpool's year of European culture. We completely missed the long awaited reunion in July, which featured the Rycroft cousins, and I see we've missed a couple more events in the autumn and another chance to hear Keith Rycroft perform.

As I said at the outset of this blog, it's a hobby, fitted into the corners of my life. Nevertheless I hope it continues to encourage others the way it encourages me. It's got going over the last couple of years because people have joined in and shared their memories, their love of the music that has emanated from Parchment and the musicians associated with the band and even how it may help point to God.

Next: so what did we get up to in 2008 and how did I managed to find 28 postings about an obscure band that folded 30 years ago?

Happy New Year and I hope it's even better than yesterday!

Where the Cross and the Manger Meet

2008-12-23T17:33:00.001Z

This is a song from River's third album Shadow and Flame.

It's a great song, written by Sue Rivers Mack, aka Sue McClellan of Parchment.

"....A saviour born to show eternal life begins
Where the cross and the manger meet."

Here's a link to the full lyric.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Pandora

2008-12-11T20:36:00.001Z

I've noticed a number of visitors trying to access the Pandora "world of Parchment" radio station we created some time ago. Many will have been disappointed because, for some reason, Pandora's activities have been restricted to the USA recently. The issue appears to be something to do with copyright licensing.

This is sad as Pandora offered an interesting collection of music, old and new, along with quite a sophisticated analysis. It introduced me to quite a number of bands and singers and led to the purchase of a number of CDs, It had just included its first Parchment tracks, from the Under the Silent Tree compilation CDs.

The last.fm radio site contains a Parchment page and a "Parchment" radio channel, largely based, so as I can see, on the Folk is a Four Letter Word 2 CD. Last.fm also has a small "Xian folk" group but the station doesn't seem to have the range of Pandora.

Sound Vision in Concert

2008-11-21T23:20:00.004Z

This 1970 live album is the only live recording I've been able to trace of Trinity Folk or Parchment in concert. In spite of regular appearances at major events over the next eight years, the band were never again captured live on vinyl. Trinity Folk, at the time a four piece, played Working Man and Laugh ("I want you all to laugh") and also feature providing backing vocals and music to compere Judy MacKenzie.

A live album was made of a similar Sound Vision concert a year earlier in 1969 called Alive!. That featured a young Graham Kendrick performing in his beat band Whispers of Truth.

Aside from Trinity Folk (pictured here), the 1970 album has other interesting features, as I discovered when I ripped it to mp3 and listened to it a few times. Among the performers was a young folk trio called Carol, John & Aubrey, who sang folk harmonies, rather like Peter, Paul and Mary. When I first obtained the album in the early 70s I used to think their mid-60s style was rather dated but listening again, their songs have become interesting, if only for the lyrics. I've been unable to find out any more about this trio - perhaps they will stand up and identify themselves!

Their first song Sunday Morning is striking in itself - "He's the man in pinstripe trousers, never goes in public houses...goes to church on Sunday morning". The song describes a middle-aged man of impeccable virtue, especially by modern standards, but "deep inside there's something missing, something he can't explain."

On the face of it it's straightforward evangelicalism - going to church does not make you a Christian. But look at the youth of the performers and listen to it again. It's also a generational challenge from the young to the old. Listen to it now and you realise it is equally a challenge to that self-same generation, now middle-aged, still going to church but have they lost their First Love, their youthful zeal? How have they survived four decades? And where is the modern generation of youth challenging its elders?

Then there's their third song Hands. Here are the lyrics. The song is attributed jointly to the band and Doug Barnett:

Whose hands are these so fragile and white,
playing on Mary's cheek on this cold, lonely night?
These are the hands that flung stars into space,
made mighty oaks, gave the eagle its grace.

Whose hands are these?

Whose hands are these in compassion and care
stretched to the leper bound down with despair?
These are the hands that made all things good;
these hands can feel where no other hands could.

Whose hands are these ripped open by nails,
bound to a cross while the mid-day sun fails?
These are the hands that bought sin and set free,
bring to your life God's true liberty.

Note the third line. 12 years later it was "sampled" by Graham Kendrick (who played backing guitar at this concert) for his popular and evocative song Servant King. A quick google reveals that Kendrick's line "hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered" is now regarded as one of the most poetic phrases to emerge from modern Christian music. If indeed this is the original source of this striking phrase, it has never been attributed.

There's a full tracklisting on Sound Vision now posted on the archive pages here.

The lost album - full credits

2008-10-16T12:33:00.001Z

John Pac has supplied the full list of credits for the lost album:

1/ Money Honey (Jesse Stone)
2/ Wild, Wild Woman (John Pac)
3/ I Really Don't Mind/Jet Plane (Sue McClellan)
4/ Denomination Blues (Washington Phillips)
5/ Chicago North Western (Juicy Lucy)
6/ Fast Train (John Pac)
7/ Morning Love, Morning Freedom (Sue McClellan)
8/ How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live (Ry Cooder/ Alfred Reed)
9/ Tom (John Pac)
10/ You Mean a Lot to Me (Sue McClellan)
11/ We're Over Here (John Pac)
12/ People and Places (John Pac/Sue McClellan))
13/ A Matter of Time (John Pac)

Band members: John Pac, Sue McClellan, Jeff Crow

This shows the album had more original songs than I thought at first. Wild Wild Woman and Chicago North Western were to have been singles. I had tracked down several other "wild woman" songs but John's rendering of the concept compared with the best of them.

He says Wild, wild woman was not written for anyone in particular. Fast Train was written for his future wife, who lived in the west of England and Tom was written for his cat Mr Jinx.

There's still uncertainty about what will happen with the material. John's current thinking is that it's too unfinished to publish as a cohesive album. It would be a shame if the band's many fans never got a chance to hear any of it. If you're one of those, why not post your ideas here.

The Eurovision Entry

2008-10-07T11:04:00.000Z

John Pac's been in touch about the lost album and revealed a fascinating snippet of information - the song People and Places was in fact written as an entry for the 1974 Eurovision song contest. John says it "did quite well" but didn't make the final six in the Song for Europe contest that was used to select the British entry. If it had made the shortlist, it would have been sung by Grease star Olivia Newton-John, who had been chosen by the BBC to represent Britain that year, and sang all the short-listed songs on primetime TV.

She went on to sing a song called Long Live Love, which, ironically, was a pseudo-gospel number. It didn't win - there was stiff competition that year. The winner was an obscure band from Sweden called Abba with a song called Waterloo.

Resisting the temptation to post a youtube video of Abba, here is the British entry. And here's a link to the sample of People and Places that's available with the Simply...Parchment CD (see left). I know which I prefer - but could Olivia Newton-John have sung the song as well as Sue McClellan? People and Places was, of course, re-recorded by the band for the Rehearsal for a Reunion album.

More on the lost album to follow...

News from the Grapevine

2008-09-24T22:52:00.002Z

Grapevine artist Dave Price, half of Dave and Dana, has posted some news on the blog. Dave and Dana recorded one Grapevine album, Morning Star, produced by Sue McClellan, and an earlier album Come on In with Pilgrim and produced by John Pantry. We were so impressed with their quality we tracked down two more great albums, Satisfied, their first self-pressed album, and their fourth album, Right Track, released on a Canadian label.

Dave's now in Mobile, Alabama, and still makes a lot of music, he reports, working in gospel, jazz and praise music. The name of the county, Mobile, comes from a Native American tribe, according to Wikipedia. Full details are here.

Pack Up Your Sorrows

2008-09-01T20:30:00.004Z

Whilst mining YouTube I've come across an original version of Pack Up Your Sorrows played by its authors Richard and Mimi Farina together with Pete Seeger. It's a great recording and Richard Farina is playing the dulcimer, a much under-rated instrument.

Parchment's amazing version is of course nothing like this! Here's a sample from the CrossRhythms site.

Here's a link to our original posting on the history of this song...

Denomination Blues

2008-09-01T13:00:00.001Z

Here's a YouTube posting of Washington Phillips' remarkable original version of Denomination Blues, from the 1920s:

The sweet-sounding instrument backing the song was apparently known as a dulceola but nobody quite knows what it was.

Parchment's second version of the song, recorded as the opening track on Shamblejam and familiar to quite a lot of people, is probably closest to this, relying as it does on John Pac's raw vocals and the simple mandolin accompaniment. The version that has emerged on the lost album
is lusher.

Phillips recorded two "parts" to the song. This part is Part I and doesn't include the notable line: if you ain't got Jesus, you's an educated fool.

More samples can be found at one of the labels that has released his songs on CD.

Ry Cooder

2008-08-31T15:34:00.004Z

The 'lost album' reveals the extent that Parchment MkII was influenced by Ry Cooder, who seems best described as a country/blues/folk musician.

The album contains two songs How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live and also Denomination Blues, which he popularised. The first was written in 1929 by "Blind" Alfred Reed and the second by Washington Phillips.

Denomination Blues was re-recorded for Shamblejam. Then for Rehearsal for a Reunion the band recorded Jesus on the Mainline, another song taken up by Ry Cooder.

So here's a great nine-minute video of Cooder performing Poor Man. I promise you the Parchment version is also terrific - and it's nothing at all like this.

And here's Cooder's version of Jesus on the Mainline:

To complete the circle Cooder has recently performed with gospel singer Mavis Staples, who recently headlined for Roundabout 2008 in Liverpool.

Lost album - full tracklisting

2008-08-19T15:34:00.004Z

This is the tracklisting of the copy of the lost album that has surfaced. It might not have been released like this, had it been issued by Pye in 1974/5, and might well not be released in this form finally.

Song authors are attached where known. At a guess I would say You Mean a Lot to Me and A Matter of Time are Sue McClellan compositions:

1/ Money Honey (Jesse Stone)
2/ Wild, Wild Woman
3/ I Really Don't Mind
4/ Denomination Blues (Washington Phillips)
5/ Chicago North Western (Juicy Lucy)
6/ Don't Like Being Away/Fast Train (John Pac/Band)
7/ Morning Love, Morning Freedom
8/ How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live (Ry Cooder/ Alfred Reed)
9/ Old Tom Cat
10/ You Mean a Lot to Me
11/ We're Over Here
12/ People and Places (Band)
13/ A Matter of Time

Band members: John Pac, Sue McClellan, Jeff Crow

I've found several songs with the same name as Old Tom Cat and Wild, Wild Woman but none seem to be the same ones as on this album. So they may be original compositions.

On the seventh and eighth hearing...

2008-08-16T22:17:00.001Z

Brilliant!

On first hearing the lost album

2008-08-15T11:49:00.000Z

There have been moments of sheer undiluted pleasure, if not joy, over the last few years.

One of those was hearing Parchment's "lost" single You Were on My Mind for the first time. A second was hearing River's You Are There followed one after the other by that band's CDs.

The first hearing of Caedmon and Whitsuntide Easter comes close to this.

As does the unique experience of being privileged to be one of the first people to hear the lost third Parchment album that was never released by Pye.

It's surprising!

But only when you consider each of Parchment's albums had very different styles. Let's face it, they were one of those bands you never knew quite what to expect with each album, especially once you'd heard Light Up the Fire, the album. You'd listen to each one, waiting for the amazing sounds of the original album and not quite hearing them - yet on further listenings they'd be there, the mandolin, the harmonies, the folkie roots, Sue's backing vocals, John Pantry's subtle, clever production techniques.

And by the second listening you are hooked...

At first hearing, it's very country rock. The rhythm guitar is prominent in a way you don't hear in the band's other albums. By the second hearing, you realise it could be another Parchment great - an album which blends their distinctive sound and talents with bold adventures into a particular musical style.

Side 2 (or the second half) is terrific! We're Over Here sounds like an echo of Trinity Folk's folk-club roots. Old Tom Cat is a great prog folk track. And there's a radically different version of People and Places from the one released, sometime later, on Rehearsal for a Reunion. And the final track is amazing - it's just too short and needs a good fade-out.

Side 1 sounds, at first, a little like a pub band. Quite a lot of other people's songs. There's Denomination Blues, re-released on Shamblejam with slightly different production. Imagine too their version of Ry Cooder's Poor Man.

What I've heard has an unfinished, bootleg feel - for instance not much of an intro to the album, if the track ordering is correct. Most of the tracks are quite short - few pass three minutes and some of the best songs could do with more fade-out.

I understand a copy was found on a cassette tape - so it's still not the master tape that John Pac had been searching for and may affect any decision about releasing it on CD. To my untutored ear it still sounds pretty good.

No doubt there are other issues affecting a release, copyrights, permissions - it could take a while.

My guess is that John must be thinking of a Simply...Parchment Part 2 - use most of these tracks, leave out the least original ones and throw in classics like Working Man, Zip Bam Boo, Golden Game and Shine on Me that were omitted from Simply..Parchment.

Full track-listing to follow and I hope in due course to get the go-ahead to post some samples of the music. The band for this album was John Pac, Sue McClellan, Jeff Crow.

This was the posting which detailed John Pac's original recollections about this album.

The poet and the elephant foot

2008-08-09T21:45:00.002Z

A fascinating revelation gives a reason to mention another personality from this era. Our recent link to a review of Shamblejam, Parchment's third album, has thrown up a comment on the other site from punk rockster Bill Mason. Bill mentions that the cover shots for Shamblejam were taken in the London home of poet Stewart Henderson.

The picture shows Brian Smith, Sue McClellan and John Pac in settings which seem to have been lifted from the Victorian age. If you had the US version you probably only had the cover shot - I think it was a single sleeve album. The British gatefold version uses photographs front, back and inside with paraphernalia shots of paraphernalia such as a model elephant and lampstand. As always with this band, the artwork seemed to work brilliantly, reflecting in this case the hippy, folky roots of the music. Nowadays you wonder what they thought they were doing with an elephant-foot stool and a leopard-skin rug on an album which featured songs such as "Green Psalm".

And so to Stewart Henderson. It always seemed he must be closely connected with Parchment. Both came from Liverpool although there is no mention of Henderson having been involved in the Roundabout arts project. Henderson produced poetry similar in kind to the Mersey Beat poets, fun, simple in language, witty, short and thought-provoking. It seemed too good to be true that the Mersey region which had produced Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten could produce another equally talented poet. Yet it wasn't. In 1975 the Dovetail label issued an album of his poems Whose Idea of Fun is a Nightmare, produced by John Pantry . Henderson went on to have a successful career as a journalist, a broadcaster and a poet - although like others of his contemporaries his recent output seems to have been aimed more at childen and the schools market than anything else.

Nightmare was recently posted by the Ancient Star Song blog.

A curiosity

2008-08-08T22:54:00.004Z

This version of the Light Up the Fire single has just gone under the hammer on ebay from a Spanish seller. There's a curious thing about it - the happy smiling faces on the front are not Parchment. They look like an early 70s pop or rock band. Does anybody know who they are?

Presumably somebody got their instructions mixed up at the printers. An oddity.

Grapevine's first album

2008-08-05T14:59:00.004Z

Thornill, Thwaites and Coe Ride! Ride! 1976. Producer: John Pac. GRV101

Grapevine's first album was a popular Methodist musical that in 1976 made its London West End debut at the Westminster Theatre - and seems to have quite a story behind it. The musical, based on a story about John Wesley in London was written by Alan Thornhill, a Methodist minister who was also an established playwright. The music was provided by a young Australian musician Penelope Thwaites.

When it gained a place at a prestigious London theatre, the musical was placed in the hands of a notable director Peter Coe, who had been responsible for the first staging of Oliver! Cast members included Caroline Villiers, Gordon Gostelow, Brendan Barry, Richard Warner, Jeremy Anthony, Kim Goody, Raymond Skipp, Abby Hadfield and Jane Martin.

The recording must have been a coup for the new label. Sales were guaranteed and the aim was to reproduce the atmosphere of a West End musical.

And that was when the trouble began. There appears to have been some dispute between Alan Thornhill and Peter Coe over the staging of the show. The album reflects Peter Coe's direction and this seems to have included adding songs to the score. Thornhill's papers have been collected by Wheaton University, USA, and the catalogue gives a flavour of the correspondence that ensued.

More recently a new version of the musical was published and a CD released. The publishers of the new version Bardic Music state: "Recordings and publications connected with the 1976 London production are no longer sanctioned for use and are therefore in breach of current copyright." The copyright issue is being pursued with some seriousness as the Ancient Star Song blog discovered when it tried to post the Grapevine album. Penelope Thwaites posted on the Star Song setting out some of the background. None of this prevents interested listeners from buying second hand copies of the Grapevine album and they are still in circulation.

I'm no great fan of musicals but I quite enjoyed the vinyl version. And was that a mandolin I hear on some of the tracks?

Roundabout reunion

2008-08-05T13:33:00.004Z

Well, we missed the Roundabout Reunion event.

It took place a month ago on July 5th. Roundabout was the Christian arts movement in Liverpool in the 60s/70s that seems to have spawned Trinity Folk, Parchment, Reynard. Roundabout 2008 has been endeavouring to catch the spirit for the city's European Capital of Culture Year.

The reunion featured Parchment founder member Keith Rycroft along with his cousin Dave Rycroft, who had played with Reynard.

it also featured the reconstituted Roundabout theatre company and local rising star Rachael Wright. She now has her own website and you can sample her music here.

Did anybody attend? How did it go?

John Pantry

2008-07-17T23:13:00.001Z

John Pantry was the production genius who worked on all four Parchment albums. He had developed his skills in parallel with the music industry in the 1960s, working with some of the big names of the era, most notably, I think, the Small Faces and the early (pre-disco) Bee Gees and enjoys semi-legendary status amongst fans of the genre.

Undoubtedly he played a big part in shaping Parchment's recorded sound. I've referred to him a few times over the last few years but had avoid a specific posting for fear of getting crucial details wrong. For instance I knew that Light Up the Fire was his first Christian music album but had heard he became a Christian after working on it. John went on to be a key player in Christian music, producing dozens of albums and launching as a solo artist and song-writer in his own right. He then achieved ordination in the Church of England before returning to music as a radio presenter with Premier Radio.

Premier has now posted a fairly full biography and that states that Pantry was converted before working on Light Up the Fire - so I stand corrected.

Other notable productions that he worked on included version two of Water Into Wine Band's Hill Climbing for Beginners - the US version - and several Grapevine albums, such as Unity's Changes, and Salt's Beyond a Song. Pre-Grapevine he had done amazing work on Dave and Dana's Come on In and the couple paid tribute to him with a terrific and passionate version of his song 'Empty-Handed' on their Grapevine album Morning Star.

Another interesting and early example of his work, Canaan, released on the Dovetail label, has been posted on the Ancient Star Song recently. The style of the band was country rock but the review refers to the "acid guitar" of the album. This was Pantry all over and it was a style ideal for the emerging Christian music scene in Britain as well as for the late 60s psychedelic music scene. One of his tricks was to pull out and highlight shortish instrumental rifts, enabling the listener to appreciate great musicianship. Think of all those great mandolin licks on the Parchment albums. Most studios, especially the Christian ones, buried these invidual sounds not having the skills or will to display them in the time constraints of vinyl. The cry of "we can't hear the words" didn't apply as Pantry knew how to balance singing with instruments.

So by the time Pac, Yates-Round and McClellan were producing for Grapevine they had learnt from a master.

Pantry's solo music style was very much man and piano, Elton John style, not necessarily to everyone's taste, but he was/is a talented song-writer. There's a discography and other information here at CrossRhythms, including a link to the Canaan story.

Lost album found!

2008-06-22T12:47:00.004Z

This is today's astonishing news.

John Pac has posted a four word message on this site: "It's 'lost' no more!".

This was the third Parchment album recorded with Pye records and never released. John Pac revealed its existence on the sleeve notes of the CD collection Simply...Parchment and over the last few months has been keeping this site abreast of the search for the album.

In February he told us he had found a cassette tape with "some" of the tracks.

Earlier he had shared some memories of the tracklisting and those details can be found at this posting here.

Thursday's Child

2008-06-17T15:27:00.007Z

MCC Thursday's Child Has Far to Go. 1979. GRV126

I was listening to my mp3 player the other day when a song called Sail Away came on. It was psych folk at its best - an ethereal woman's voice, lots of echo, a simple but haunting melody, grabbing you by the heart strings and twisting them tight. Who could it be? I wondered whether it was some of Judy Dyble's latest work. It was in fact the opening track of side two of this remarkable Grapevine album from 1979.

MCC consisted of Martin Colley, Rob Cox and Chris May and appeared to have been linked to the Reflections label, which had early pioneered the idea of Christians using progressive, cutting edge folk music and still has an on-line presence. The MCC members seem to have been involved earlier in the 1974 Sounds of Salvation album, which can be found here on this download site.

Many of the vocals on the MCC album were provided by other singers, the woman singer being Elga Askew.

This seems to have been a concept album based on the rather mawkish topic of a failing Christian marriage. Quite possibly it formed part of a touring show, using early 70s progressive musical styles to engage with 20 and 30 somethings.

Yet starting with the Moody Bluesish intro with a long fade-in, its production values are amazing. My second-hand vinyl copy came with a deep gouge in the first two tracks but my record player successfully played through it, slipping just a little, and editing software removed the clicks.

Worst failing? Like some other bands of the time they could not resist the temptation to attempt and parody West Indian music on the track Looking Up. It's not comfortable to modern ears.

MCC were responsible for the production. The copyright for the music was attributed to Parchment Music Ltd and the sleeve notes thank Sue McClellan for supervising the lead vocals and John Pac for his encouragement. Sue also helped with backing vocals.

The photo of the cover here, I'm afraid, does not do justice do the quality of the artwork.

Caedmon's Return

2008-05-19T11:01:00.003Z

There's exciting news today that the band Caedmon has re-formed after a gap of some 30 years. Some analysts have listed Caedmon and Parchment as the two Christian acid folk bands of the 70s. It's probably a false categorisation as their musical styles of the two bands, both British, overlapped with a number of other progressive folk bands such as Reynard, Water into Wine Band, Candle Factory.

Here's a YouTube video of the band gigging together over the weekend:

There are plans for a new album and here's their new website, Caedmon's Return.

This is a link to our original posting on Caedmon where there's been quite a lot of discussion about the band's history and the question of whether their album rates as the greatest acid folk album of all time or not. There's a also an account of an unsuccessful attempt to form a kind of Christian acid folk supergroup between members of Parchment and Caedmon in the early 80s.

Ken Patterson of the band tells us they plan to introduce new instruments such as trombone, accordion and drumkit.

A Shamblejam review

2008-05-11T21:00:00.004Z

Here's a link to an interesting reminiscence about Parchment's third album Shamblejam.

It's an album that enjoys a kind of cult status in the blogosphere. It's unusual name makes it easy to track down references. It was also the only album released directly in the USA by Myrrh so it ended up as an oddity in quite a few collections. Whisky Prajer's comments are typical of what you will find - the listener knew nothing about the band, or even whether Shamblejam was the band or the album, only that here was a unique sound.

I'd find it hard to review the album. As with all the band's albums, my first impressions remain vivid. The first two tracks were familiar ground. The manic mandolin on Denomination Blues, the folk harmonies and pseudo-hippy mysticism on Green Psalm. Then it entered unfamiliar territory, borrowing from other styles and yet still quintessentially Parchment, both cheerful and reflective, even melancholy all at once. Great musicianship, great production, great song-writing and great singing from Sue McClellan. Follow the link for an account that describes this album far better than I can.

Manic Mandolin!

2008-04-12T22:48:00.003Z

You Were On My Mind was recorded by the band as a single although so far as I can recall it was never released in a general sense.

I'd never heard of it until I spotted it on e-bay a few years ago and obtained a copy. It was then, marvellously, included in the Simply...Parchment CD collection.

Quite likely, the song was recorded because in those days British pop gospel bands tended to latch on to any pop songs with vaguely Christian lyrics. However the Parchment version was anything but reverent!

The original song was written by folk singer Sylvia Fricker, later part of the folk duo Iain and Sylvia, and became a top three hit in the USA in the hands of a beat group called We Five.

You can find both these versions on YouTube. And the Parchment version is nothing like either.

It is frankly, manic. By the time it gets to the refrain: "I got troubles, I got worries, I got crucified" the band is singing in a kind of blues harmony while the mandolin is pinging away. And then there's the fade out with each of the three band members singing parts in a glorious jumble of sound.

It's not on any of the original albums - understandably as it would not have fitted on any of them. If you can hear a copy compare it with Sylvia's original version or We Five. There's a sample at the link to Simply..Parchment on the left or here. Sylvia's original is slow and stately while We Five upped the tempo a little in an artless sort of fashion. The Parchment version is in a different league.

There's also a Wikipedia entry on the song.
More info on mandolins here.

RIP Larry Norman

2008-03-02T22:20:00.002Z

Rocker Larry Norman died a week ago. Larry was the single greatest contemporary performer and writer in modern Christian music, a troubled and radical man of unbroken faith who used his gifts to write great songs that were often as uncomfortable for church-based listeners as for the unconverted.

As many have commented, heaven will be richer for his presence and yet, one feels, Larry will expect to be no more than a busker in the corner of Paradise.

Writing about Hollywood Sunset, we commented on how both Norman and Parchment found themselves, almost at the same time, pushing at the boundaries of what was acceptable, even to those Christian listeners who had enjoyed and adopted contemporary media.

Norman's and Parchment's music were not at all obviously alike. Norman drew on rock and roll, blues and American folk, Parchment on beat, British folk and pop. But as much as any other performers they shared the same vision and challenges.

Keith Rycroft, of Parchment, has posted a tribute to Larry Norman on the CrossRhythms website (this link gives their full obituary). I hope he won't mind us reposting it:
I was in a group named Parchment in 1973 and had the experience of touring with Larry Norman. He was a talented if not a somewhat enigmatic individual. I am not sure what UK christians made of him. He was a larger than life very blond californian christian singer, not singing hymns, but singing 'songs'. Songs they thought they liked but weren't sure they should. He, like us at the time ,was attempting to inject a contemporary musical agenda into 'christian music'. I am sure he will be missed but not forgotten.

The Strange Parallel World...

2008-02-17T17:25:00.003Z

Ken Patterson, of Caedmon, has mentioned a recent programme on BBC Radio 4.

Presented by Paul Bayley, it's entitled The Strange Parallel World of Christian Pop and lasts just 30 minutes. Amazingly it manages to get through 30 minutes without referring to Cliff Richard or Graham Kendrick!

Starting with the CrossBeats in Liverpool, Paul gives an excellent tour of the way gospel musicians in the 60s and 70s pushed at the boundaries of music - and explains why so much has become so collectible recently. And yes there is reference to Parchment and the band's appeal to acid folk collectors.

You can find it here.

Caedmon

2008-02-17T16:43:00.002Z

Ken Patterson, of the mega-obscure and mega-talented Scottish band Caedmon, has been contributing to an earlier post, from 2006, about this remarkable group.

You can find it all here.

Vision

2008-01-24T09:55:00.000Z

This song from Rehearsal for a Reunion is the first track on the Simply...Parchment CD collection. It's an interesting and significant choice.

I found myself in a car with a tapeplayer the other day and listened to Rehearsal straight through for the first time in ages. It's an under-recognised album, notable for its new songs and in particular for show-casing Sue McClellan's gift for melody and song-writing and her ability to render her own songs in a peerless fashion.

As if by coincidence I'd been in church the day before and we'd had a medley of the new worship songs. Now it's easy to sound fogeyish about new music and the truth is that in each generation, when there's an outpouring of new music, a lot of its dross and a small amount will last for ever. Nevertheless it struck me forcibly how badly constructed two of the songs were. In one case they had a verse and a melody that wasn't too bad but after a few lines it launched into the chorus. To sing the chorus - and I'm no musicologist - you had to launch immediately into a kind of ecstasy, singing in quite a high register. A lot of people aren't willing to do that, certainly not in a forced fashion. Then back to the next verse. And I thought, how much better it would have been if the song-writer had let the congregation build up gradually - singing the first verse, which wasn't too bad, and then just raising the pitch a little, allowing the singers to contemplate the words so they were ready for the grand finale of the final chorus...and then repeat it spontaneously if you like.

And then the next day I had Rehearsal on the tape and Vision came on. In the lyric sheet it seems to have just two verses and a refrain. The melody is driven by the metre of the words:
Slowly I stand, a vision I see

Taking my breath away it's open to me

Streets filled with life confusion and tears

Music so heavenly the heart only hears.

Then, lyrically, comes the five lines of the refrain (or perhaps not the refrain), No more you weep the angel commands.

Then the second/third verse comes in and the way that's treated, with harmony and playing with the melody, you think that's the refrain, building up to its last line.
When Jesus comes again be ready be wise

And it may be ..or maybe not.

For a second rendering of the refrain follows:
No more you weep the angel commands

Light like a mystery shines from his hands

Jesus is here, the waiting is done

Lay down your heavy hearts

A new world has come

Then the second verse is repeated twice, without the refrain, so that the line

When Jesus comes again be ready be wise

is the hook line.

So it's not a classic verse-chorus construction at all. In fact, treating it as if it has three verses, the construction is:
1,2,
3,2,
3,3

That's how you build a song!

Okay, this song would probably be murdered if used for congregational singing - but then I don't suppose anyone has ever tried to use the songs from Rehearsal for this purpose.

I would say that many of the phrases from Rehearsal have stayed with me all my life. They are those kind of songs. It was a good final album. Another example is Talking to You. Simple and to the point lyrics, beautifully rendered:

Talking to You is part of my day

I'm talking to you and all my fears wash away

Talking to You seems to make my dreams come true

And I know that I don't want anyone else but you

Once you've heard it on the album, it's unforgettable.

And the song-craft was later repeated when Sue McClellan wrote a series of songs for River. The same gift for melody and for rendering of songs is seen on the four River albums, probably most notably on the third short one, Shadow and Flame.

There's one other notable feature of Vision. It has a mandolin intro, making it an ideal candidate to kick off the compilation set.

2008

2008-01-22T17:03:00.001Z

A year ago we set this site a number of tasks, little realising how well things were going to develop!

2007 was a terrific year and it's been a pleasure to hear from members of the band and from other musicians associated with the Grapevine label. Several people have submitted recollections, pictures and reviews. One or two promised them but haven't got round to it...so please don't give up. We're still waiting.

By January we'd worked out that Grapevine was, in effect, Parchment and therefore set out to find out more about its output. Over the year there have been reviews of albums and we've heard from artists such as Kevin Gould and Dave Kelly, who recorded what seems to have been the last album released by Grapevine. The development of music blogs elsewhere has made it possible for some of this music to be shared widely, as well as raising some difficult copyright issues.

We promised to post some of the features about the band from Buzz magazine. So far have three have gone up.

And we'd heard from John Pac. And a few weeks ago John came on the site and posted a number of comments and recollections, including some details of the lost third album. We also heard from the band's last member Pete Yates-Round and from Jeff Crow, who took over from Keith Rycroft and whose output was lost with the third album.

We've also during the year done work on the archive site, posting track listings for the four vinyl albums along with a Grapevine discography (which remains incomplete).

So what would we like to see happen this year?

First of all lots more contributions and photos!

Secondly we've got more Buzz material to post, especially from the Light Up the Fire era. There's probably also scope to mine material on album inserts and sleeves that not everyone has access to.

It would be good to have more detailed reviews and appreciations of Parchment albums and songs. Our posting on Hollywood Sunset led to a terrific analysis being submitted by an anonymous poster.

The search for the Grapevine story continues. There are still albums and bands to find out about and stories to recount - alongside the work the band did with the Pilgrim label.

We'd also like to know more about the band's early years, especially the story of Trinity Folk.

Then of course there's Roundabout 2008 in Liverpool which is already throwing up memorabilia but also seeking to foster new talent and fresh breath in the city of culture. It's already backing one young artist Rachael Wright and I guess a few people are looking forward to hearing her work. Let's pray for more.

Roundabout 2008

2008-01-11T22:49:00.000Z

Liverpool's year as European City of Culture was launched today and over at Roundabout 2008 there are some developments too.

Of special interest is a collection of archive photographs. They include several taken at the Greenbelt Arts Festival, two of Parchment, one of Reynard, and several of Keith Rycroft.

The photos of Parchment are taken during a marquee performance, not mainstage. It's difficult to make out which line-up it is but it's not the original

Roundabout was - and I think still is - an arts project and drama group, which also provided a focus for some of the talented musicians who came together to form Parchment and other bands, such as Reynard.

The Roundabout 08 project seems to have developed slowly but also seems to be alive. There's one big event advertised so far, a concert by gospel veterans The Blind Boys of Alabama.

While in Liverpool, we should signpost another interesting site related to the city. This is the Crossbeats site which is packed with archive information from the 1960s and is where we obtained one of the pictures of the Trinity Folk that was posted earlier.

Happy Christmas!

2007-12-23T22:08:00.000Z

Angel voices singing high

Angel voices singing low

Pointing upwards to the sky

Showing us the way to go

Angel voices sing your song

Sing it loud, sing it clear

Telling us it won't be long

'Til the Holy One is here

from Rehearsal for a Reunion

A very happy and joyful Christmas to all and thanks to those who have participated in this site over the year.

The lost third album

2007-11-27T22:36:00.000Z

Sometime ago we commented on the mystery of the lost album, the existence of which John Pac revealed in the sleeve notes of Simply...Parchment. The album was to have been the third released by the band on Pye.

Today John's been on the site adding a number of interesting comments, including some information about the lost album. He can't remember all the tracks but has recalled several. Here they are:

Chicago North West, originally recorded by Juicy Lucy.
Fast train byJohn Pac ( similar to Getting Out of This Town on Hollywood Sunset, he says; that would make it uptempo and acoustic).
How can a poor man stand such times as this (a Ry Cooder great, sung by Sue McClellan).
Money Honey, which was "a brilliant version of a classic".
Denomination Blues, a Ry Cooder song later recorded by the band on Shamblejam.
People and Places, the band's own song, later recorded on Rehearsal for a Reunion.

He says there were some "great classic tracks" but the album was unfinished. I wonder if the album had a name or artwork.

John adds: "Unfortunately the 2 inch masters were also missing at least those that had
vital tracks on them, and there has been no sight of the rough mixes. Believe me I've
searched everywhere and asked everyone."

Well the songs give a flavour of the band's direction at the time but given the band's ability to make other people's songs entirely their own, only a part flavour. Let's be sure this album's waiting in heaven if it's not going to turn up down here!

John also separately tells the story of the band's dobro. You can find that here.

Finally a message for you, John! Randy, the Liberation Suite drummer, has tried to reply to your email but his reply's been blocked by an anti-spammer. He's on a gmail account.

Interesting blog posting

2007-11-18T21:28:00.000Z

A folk-oriented blog, Time Has Told Me, has posted the album of Light Up the Fire, for downloading. The posting has generated some interesting comments and recollections, especially one about the band playing at someone's school and the headmaster commenting that their (acoustic) sound was "a little loud".

There's got to be mixed feelings about the album being posted for a free download. Some download blogs aim to select albums that are not available on CD and almost all will remove a posting if approached by copyright holders. A lot of bands are delighted to see their work being circulated to new audiences and, of course, in many cases it is very hard to track down the copyright-holders.

In the case of this album almost all the tracks are available on the Simply...Parchment CD. I picked up a CD version a few years ago but it seems to have been a pirate. I believe there was a CD release in the early 90s and I saw a copy change hands on ebay a few weeks ago for a little over £10, rather more than the original vinyl fetches. There's no reason why the posting would deter people from buying Simply...Parchment as the collection encompasses all four albums and some of the singles too. So the effect may well be the opposite and collectors may rush to discover the rest of the band's music and even the wonderful songs released by Sue McClellan through her more recent band, River.

Fish Co - A Grapevine star

2007-11-18T20:54:00.000Z

Fish Co. Beneath the Laughter. 1977. Producer John Pac. Grapevine 114.

A few weeks ago I got a listen of Fish Co's first album, which was everything I expected - enjoyable, poppy, easy listening songs performed by a Simon and Garfunkel style duo.

Produced by John Pac, the album, Can't Be Bad, included Sue McClellan and Peter Yates-Round on backing vocals on the track goodnight brothers. The sleeve actually records Sue M as "Sue (Won't you come out of that field and stop writing poetry) McClellan".

Now some samples of their Grapevine-issued second album Beneath the Laughter have become available. According to Ken Scott, the expert on the genre, this album is "altogether much darker" than the first. The duo had transformed into a full scale band

Getting Fish Co was a triumph for Grapevine and a mixed blessing. Grapevine may have been the most progressive Christian label but Fish Co, led by the eccentric and much lamented Steve Fairnie, had its sights on the avant garde.

According to some accounts, the band had transformed itself into a new post-punk electro-band, Writz, even before Beneath the Laughter hit the shops. By the time I saw them perform at Greenbelt 1980 they had changed again into Famous Names.

There's now a website which documents Fairnie's amazing and brave career and also offers the samples I have listened to.

These are a revelation, especially if you are looking for the Parchment legacy. Great songs backed by blues guitar, folkie, harmonising female backing vocals by Bev Sage and Barbie Benson of the kind that Parchment specialised in and amazing fade-outs. The sound is that of Shamblejam.

You can listen to Fish Co's first, Myrrh-issued album, Can't Be Bad, here, at the Ancient Star Song Blog.

You can find the Beneath the Laughter samples and the Fairnie story here at fairnie.net. This link takes you directly to the story of the album.

Grapevine's last album?

2007-11-07T00:11:00.000Z

Dave Kelly, whose album Crowning of a Simple Man, was, we believe, released as Grapevine 142, has been in contact.

Dave has generously shared some of his experience of that time, giving a terrific insight into the life of a musician of the period and paying tribute to John Pac's skills. Pac produced a flute and fiddle player from Ireland and a bagpiper for the album. Other backing music came from Dylan's then backing band. Sadly the release of the album was overshadowed by an awful personal tragedy which hit Dave. You can find his account here.

The album was initially released by Pilgrim America and presumably was put on Grapevine for a UK release. So far as we believe it was the last release on the Grapevine label although information about the last round of releases in 1980 has been hard to come by.

Dave has supplied the album's tracklisting:
Side One
1/ King of Love
2/ God Knows Your Heart
3/ Tonight
4/ Supernatural Man
5/ Dead or Alive

Side Two
1/ Turn Your Back
2/ Love Night and Day
3/ Trouble
4/ Sandy
5/ Ballad of J.C.

Kevin Gould

2007-10-25T21:10:00.000Z

Kevin Gould, who was responsible for the marvellous Clear Vision album on Grapevine has been in touch with a number of sites seeking archive material. Kevin's bringing out a new album and it sounds like an interesting project. He plans to link it with a website and is looking for pictures of his early career, which kicked off in 1973. The 1978 Clear Vision album had Parchment providing backing vocals as a band and we wondered if this was the last recording of them performing together as a band.

If you can help, you can find more details at the Ancient Star Song

Pace - The Trial

2007-10-25T18:47:00.000Z

Pace. The Trial. 1976. Grapevine 104
For their fourth album on the Grapevine label, the team embarked on a musical with a group called Pace. This depicted the trial of Jesus Christ. John Pac joined the performers on mandolin and Pete Yates-Round on the drums. I think I would have enjoyed it in 1976. Now it just seems like a Jesus Christ Superstar imitation, including that annoying way in which rock performers declaimed dialogue during musicals, and doesn't seem to add much to it. It's been posted by the Heavenly Grooves blog. You can download it from there and there's more information also.It would be interesting to know the background - was it written for a touring production?

Some Grapevine goodies

2007-09-16T17:53:00.002Z

Unity. Changes. 1978.
Producer: John Pantry. Grapevine 123.
A terrific Abba style album of mid-70s pop. Side one bops all the way through. Side 2 is slower, mainly devoted to beautifully sung ballads, but its first track Mr Goodlife is a disco classic which sounds as much like the contemporary Scissor Sisters as anyone else.

This band seems to have hailed from Ayr, Scotland, and included somewhere between 16 and 18 members, of whom five sung as soloists. The mainstays were the Goudie brothers and the drummer Ray Goudie has continued to be influential musically, writing the musical Luv Esther.

As for the rest of the band members, this is their group picture from the back of the album. A group of denim-clad mid-70s young people. Are you among them?

Full tracklistings

2007-08-09T10:21:00.000Z

There are now full tracklistings for the four original Parchment albums posted on the archive site. The listings link back to some of the earlier postings on this site with commentaries on individual albums or songs. The next step, I think, is to post the authorship of each song.

There are also comments posted on several of the Grapevine postings with links to other work by the artists or source material for the albums.

Hollywood Sunset

2007-06-22T22:09:00.000Z

We've spent months working on an article on Hollywood Sunset. It's just been posted but the way the blog system works it's posted when it was first drafted back in March. So follow this link to see it.

Grapevine Discography

2007-06-22T21:27:00.001Z

There's now a discography of the Grapevine label posted on our archive pages here. There are some gaps so if you can help fill them, please let us know.

Dave and Dana's other records

2007-05-29T14:42:00.002Z

Before recording with Pilgrim/Grapevine Dave and Dana Price recorded one album, which appears to have been self-published: Satisfied in about 1975. This is an album of beautiful simplicity as it consists solely of Dana Lee Price singing and Dave Price playing the guitar with no accompaniment or embellishments. The songs include a couple of Appalachian folk melodies and quite a few covers, especially of songs by Lou Hayles, who was a member of Meet Jesus Music. The only self-penned song is Remain in Me, which also appears on Come on In.

Their fourth album Right Track was released by the Canadian label Rivendell in 1980 and distributed in the UK by Myrrh. Dave Price himself produced it. It uses one or two contemporary electronic effects and is a much more electric album than the earlier ones. It has six of the couple's own songs. Both albums are hugely enjoyable in their own right but maybe lack the heights that the Grapevine production teams, of Parchment and John Pantry, achieved with this couple on Come on In and Morning Star.

That's four albums by this talented couple but no news of them beyond 1980.

Three Great Grapevine Albums

2007-05-26T11:19:00.001Z

Bill Davidson Stars Wars of Darkness and Light. 1978. Producers: Sue McClellan and Pete Yates-Round. Grapevine 119.
Bill Davidson was with the Joy Strings, the legendary Salvation Army pop band of the 60s, and later played with another, rockier Sally Ann band, Good News, which, so far as I know, produced one great album of driving early 70s style rock New Life.
Star Wars was the first of two albums Bill produced with Grapevine. The second was I Belong To You, Grapevine 129. It shows him as an under-recognised singer-songwriter, using some of the new electronic backing that was emerging at the end of the decade. Publisher is MCPS, rather than Parchment Music.
Some great, and often biting, lyrics include the following: If Jesus came today he'd be a folk singer/He'd tell the truth like it has never been told./He couldn't blame the church for growing old/But he'd crucify the church for growing cold.

Or this:
See God's holy ministers playing at careers/Treading on the meek to get influential ears/Christian love gets so selective/that it sometimes disappears.

The cover tries bravely to reflect the ambitious theme but there's no light sabres! Drums by Pete Yates-Round, Bill does the backing vocals himself. You can hear the earlier New Life album here on the Heavenly Grooves blog.

(30/8/07) This album's now been posted for download at the Ancient Star Song blog .

Salt Beyond a Song. 1977. Producer John Pantry. Grapevine 111.
Celtic tinged folk from a Northern Irish band of four guys and two girls. Pete Yates-Round on the drums. Wonderful instrumentation with instruments including the Bhodran, claves, flute, tin whistles, mandolin, harmonica and 12-string guitar. Hovers on the brink of being a folk classic but let down by the limited contribution from the women vocalists. Publisher is Parchment Music.

Andy McCarroll Epitaph for a Rebel 1978. Producer Andy Kidd. Grapevine 116.

Hugely enjoyable soft rock album with a Billy Joel piano-bashing feel. One song Tombstone is a Dylanesque epic. Published by Parchment Music but no other input from the band. Keyboards by Pete Banks, of After the Fire and earlier of Narnia. Shaggy-haired McCarroll went on to form a New Wave band, Moral Support. McCarroll's first album Through Different Eyes Now came out in 1975 and you can hear it here on the Heavenly Grooves blog.

Is this the last gig?

2007-04-19T23:26:00.000Z

Is this the last gig - and maybe even the last song, that last rousing rendition of Light Up the Fire in front of 30,000 people at the Greenbelt Festival in August 1978?
The picture is taken from the Greenbelt 74-83 commemorative album produced by Myrrh records.
Sue McClellan is definitely wearing the same boiler suit as at Kamperland, a few weeks earlier and judging by her attitude may be leading the audience in the final singalong described by band member Pete Yates-Round.
Sadly the album does not contain live recordings. It is a great listen of Greenbelt greatest hits but the Parchment song is Light of the World from the Myrrh-issued Shamblejam three years earlier. Myrrh anthologised this track a number of times. With stunning electronic effects, it is probably the most sophisticated track on the album, if not the most fun.
Does anyone have any better pictures of Greenbelt 1978 - or indeed any Greenbelt appearances?

Parchment's last member

2007-03-25T21:14:00.000Z

We've been privileged to hear from Pete Yates-Round, the last band member to join Parchment.

Pete has answered a number of questions for us and also given an account of his time with Parchment and how he came to join the band. It's a great story. We'll report on some of his other answers in the future - as they relate to other topics covered on this site.

Pete places the band's last gig, and effective end, at the Greenbelt Festival in summer 1978, when they ended with a rousing performance of Light Up the Fire.

We asked Pete what it was like playing with Parchment.

His reply: "A fantastic experience: It was a great blessing and honour to be involved with such great people as Sue and John. I think it is fair to say we pushed the boundaries of Christian music during our time together. I know I came in at the tail end but my time with the band was the most concentrated and rewarding time. I met and worked with the best and hopefully the albums which I worked on with the others will stand the test of time and be an inspiration to others.

"As for our public and fans? Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! The lasting memory of Parchment will always be the final Greenbelt gig when we sang as final farewell 'Light up The Fire' and 30,000 people sang the entire song back to us!"

Pete told us how he came to join the band. Here's his story:
"I think that it is safe to say that Parchment helped change the way that Christian music was accepted by an older Christian generation that was struggling to understand the then modern music culture.

"I remember seeing Parchment from afar at the Festival of Light concert in Hyde Park when they were appearing with Gordon Giltrap and others. I really felt inspired to go back to my church youth group and start writing and singing songs of a more contemporary nature. The Christian music revolution had begun; we suddenly had a bridge that connected our secular tastes with our worship music. We were able to express our beliefs and feelings with our own musical styles. Suddenly we had Christian 'pop stars' and although there was suspicion from some of the older Christian folk that this would lead us all away from the light, others were delighted that suddenly more young people were joining congregations across the country.

"Apart from my local performances in my home town Tonbridge, my Christian musical career really leapt forward when I was asked to join the Christian band Narnia, fronted by the couple Pauline and Jack Filby. We all lived at Cliff Richards house in Little Dunmow, Essex which he donated as a Christian Arts Centre and which was run by Jack and Pauline.

"These were great days as I was able to write and play with great musicians as John Russell (Starship,ATF) Tim Hatwell and of course the hugely talented Pete Banks (After the Fire). We rubbed shoulders with Cliff and guests which included, Mick Abrahams (Blodwyn Pig) Tony Rivers (Strawbs) and even Eric Clapton.

"It was whilst working with Narnia I was first exposed to TV, Radio and appearances at such venues as Upstairs at Ronnie Scott's, The Marquee club and the famous Concerts in St Pauls Cathedral.

"I then had the opportunity of joining an international rock youth group named Credo, (this is where I met and worked with Jan van Srallen, lead guitarist with Whitsuntide Easter, we became firm friends, and it was my influence to include them and new band Voiz onto the Grapevine label) which was based in Holland but then toured Europe and the USA. At 17 (1973) this was a real adventure for me, so I joined and so began my love of being on the road, I lived out of a suitcase for the next eight years.

"After my tour with Credo, I returned to Holland and started to work on the Youth for Christ coffee bar circuit. The Dutch loved the English Christian musicians, and I toured with some great acts, such as Fish Co, Nutshell and of course Parchment.

"I worked for two weeks in Steenwijk with Sue, John, Nick, and Brian as their support and naturally we all got to know each other extremely well. We would jam together and I was overawed that these guys really appreciated my music.

"To complicate matters I was talent spotted by the then CBS label one night and put under contract. The terms insisted that I stay in Holland and wait for my turn to be groomed. I had no real desire to stay and wanted to get back to England and re-establish contact with Sue and John. I did a bunk, and met up with the band in Covent Garden, Brian had decided to leave and they needed a third person for the Chepstow gig. I naturally obliged, and that was the start of the new era."

He added: "You will notice that during those early years a lot of the most gifted and musically influential young Christians' emerged. Paul Field, Steve Rowles, Steve Fairney, Mo Macaferty, Mal Grolsh and many others helped influence and inspire a whole succession of generations to give Christ inspired music the recognition and acceptance that it needed to prove an effective witness."

Pete still lives in Bristol where the band was based in its final years.

He told us: "I stayed in Bristol met my wife and have two grown up girls. I have had a succesfull time in the motorcar business and now work as a consultant to several Prestige manufacturers. I also have a magazine which is just coming up to its first anniversary. I am still involved with the local village Church and community. I keep in regular contact with my great mate Nick Ryan (Bass player writer and producer) and spend quite a lot of time at his mountain home and studio in Kerry South West Ireland writing and recording."

Hollywood Sunset

2007-03-24T22:23:00.000Z

Hollywood Sunset was released in late 1973 by Pye with publicity in the national music press. In December 1973 BUZZ magazine promised a review of the album and an interview with the band in the next issue.

The interview appeared but not the review. And, remarkably, throughout the interview the new album was never referred to by name but only as "the new album".

Why could this have been? Hollywood Sunset was one of two albums to break the mould of the Jesus music scene at this time. The other was Larry Norman's So Long Ago the Garden. The magazine was similarly dismissive of Norman's controversial album, which, in its various pressings, contained little "evangelistic" material and a great deal of sharp comment and introspection.

Whilst BUZZ's parent organisation, Musical Gospel Outreach had pioneered the use of contemporary music styles, it's name indicates the belief that the music was largely there to support evangelisation.

Hollywood Sunset never once mentioned the name of Jesus or God. Just two songs had an explicit Christian message, Gift and Death in Jerusalem. You are my morning was a worship song with ambiguous lyrics. There was road music, urban angst, mysticism and some mild eroticism.

It was intended to break Parchment out of the Christian ghetto and establish them as serious recording artists. It was a professionally produced, early 70s pop album - but was probably about 12 months too late in terms of the rapidly-shifting 1970s pop tastes. It remains a great album and like all four Parchment albums is best listened to as a whole.

Although its pop-style makes it in some ways more dated than the other three albums, it's also probably the strongest lyrically. Songs like You are my morning, Gift and Getting out of this town are beautifully crafted whilst Dobbie's Song and I'm a Man expressed a thoughtful mysticism. The title track, written a couple of years before Star Wars transformed Hollywood's fortunes, seems quite meaningless now but has a classic Parchment sound whilst Death in Jerusalem's freaky electronic effects make it a psych folk classic.

John Pac told Buzz interviewer Danny Smith: "I think it's wrong to trick people into the concert and then to bang the gospel at them. If the music is related to their lives, they're prepared to listen."

Danny Smith wrote: "Parchment's struggle to retain their artistic integrity has caused concern - even doubts and rumours about their Christian commitment."

Pac responded: "People might feel we've compromised but that's not so..."

Curiously the water-coloured sunset cover was echoed by Sue Mack's band River on their second album Rise Like the Sun.

Here's the review that Buzz could have written: "A mould-breaking second album from our greatest band. You don't think it's a Christian album? Check out the ballad Gift and the barnstorming Death in Jerusalem. The album shows the band at their song-writing best with profound and poetic lyrics in songs such as You are My Morning and sing-a-long melodies on songs like Butterfly. Are Parchment still a folk band? This is as much pop as folk but there are still the distinctive harmonies, the mandolin, the dobro and the furiously played acoustic guitars.This is very much a road album, a bunch of musicians leaving their native Liverpool to see the wider world. But will it break the band out of the Christian ghetto? We fear not but hope they won't give up and will continue to write and record innovative and cutting edge music."

Here is that BUZZ interview in full from January 1974.

Live in 73!

2007-03-22T17:35:00.000Z

Thanks to Roel Velema for these pictures of Parchment performing live in the Netherlands in the summer of 1973. The pictures show John Pac, Sue McClellan and a third member, who must be Jeff Crow. Crow joined them in 1973 but never appeared on a published album with the band although he may have performed on the third lost album that was never released by Pye.

Here is Roel's account:
"Friesland, Summer 1973. Together with two friends, we sailed the lakes of Friesland (the northwestern province of The Netherlands). One afternoon we tied up the boat in Sneek, a town in Friesland. Soon we discovered that Youth for Christ had tent meetings there. We - convinced and dedicated Christians - decided to visit those meetings.

To our surprise we were treated that evening to a concert of extraordinary quality by a British group I never forgot: Parchment.

Promptly that evening I bought their two records: Light up the Fire and Hollywood Sunset. The group personally signed the latter album and I treasured both albums ever since.

Later Parchment also performed a few songs on Dutch television.

So enjoy the three pictures I took that evening in Sneek."

Note: We're planning a feature on the Hollywood Sunset era in the near future. The album was officially released in late 1973.

More albums

2007-03-01T15:31:00.000Z

Dave and Dana Come on In 1976/1977. Producer John Pantry. Pilgrim Records?
I've managed to obtain a US version of this lost treasure, distributed by Sound III in Kansas, possibly this duo's first album. It's more patchy in quality than Grapevine's Morning Star, relying heavily on songs written by contemporary gospel stars. However Dana Lee Price's voice and Dave Price's guitar work continue to charm and John Pantry's production skills create some neat effects. Pantry produced all four Parchment albums. Parchment's Pete Yates-Round was on the drums. Best tracks and those most likely to appeal to readers of this blog are the self-penned tracks, Come on In and Remain in Me, the sitar-based Melchisedek, a version of the Meet Jesus Music song, and Troublesome Waters, a US country gospel song turned to acid folk.

Dave Price was a Londoner whilst his wife was from Maryland, USA, but gains the title of honorary Brit for her vocal qualities.

Rufaro Rufaro. 1977. Producer John Pac. Pilgrim 432.
This trio, two guys and a girl, seem to have come from South Africa. Despite the blood-drenched album sleeve, they are not heavy metal, as I previously guessed, but a folk trio in the 60s Peter, Paul and Mary style. Best track is the African song Rufaro. Otherwise mostly rather bland with quite a lot of piano. They issued two other albums with Pilgrim so must have had a decent following. These were Person to Person Pilgrim 450 and Take Away the Stone Pilgrim 480

Three pilgrims

2007-03-01T15:19:00.000Z

Here's a page from a four page pull out in BUZZ magazine, October 1977, marking the band taking over production at Pilgrim Records and the release of their last album Rehearsal for a Reunion. Oddly the piece did not mention the launch of the Grapevine Label.

Grapevine Records

2007-02-16T17:09:00.000Z

Here are some samples of lost treasures:
Dave and Dana Morning Star. 1978. Producer Sue McClellan. Grapevine 124.
Terrific breathy vocals from Dana Lee Price, who also demonstrates a great rock and roll voice.
Starts with a funky late 70s style number and then ranges through self-penned songs and standards by well-known song-writers of the period. He's not a rumor is their own rock'n'roller. Enjoyed it enormously. Cannot find any trace of any other work by this couple. A shame.

Kevin Gould Clear Vision. 1978. Producer John Pac. Grapevine 122.
A surprisingly strong offering from this Welsh crooner. Gould had a brief moment of fame on the gospel scene but was not regarded as a top league musician. This album is lyrically strong with decent melodies and strong production. He later became a pastor in Alaska, USA, and continues to produce the occasional album.
Backing vocals are attributed to 'Parchment' and song rights are also attributed to "Parchment Ltd". Wonder what happened to Parchment Ltd. And does this mean this is the last album on which they appear as a band?

Malcolm Wild Broken Chains. 1979. Producer John Pac. Grapevine 131
Despite early promise from the opening track, Love is you, a disappointing solo album by one half of the highly rated Malcolm and Alwyn. The combined talents of three great British gospel combos of the 70s, Malcolm and Alwyn, the Alwyn Wall Band and Parchment, together with numerous other musicians, failed to rescue a production relying too heavily on string arrangements. A classic case of the parts of a great song-writing team not being as good as the whole. Enjoyable enough for hardcore Malcolm and Alwyn fans.

Koinonia Gentle as Morning. 1977. Producer Sue McClellan Pilgrim 427
Perhaps where Sue Mack learnt the choral management skills she later applied with such good effect to her own band River. This was an Irish choir, decked in the long pinafore dresses that were fashionable about five years earlier. An enjoyable gallop through some lesser known worship songs of the period. I cannot find any indication they wrote any of their own material.

Pilgrim Records and the Grapevine Label was owned by the Christian publisher Marshall, Morgan and Scott which in turn was owned by the Pentos Group. I believe Pentos went into liquidation in the mid-90s, so who owns the rights of these labels is an intriguing question.

Do you own a Grapevine Record that's not been reported on this site? Could you submit a short review in the above style? Post it here.

Whitsuntide Easter and Grapevine

2007-02-09T23:21:00.000Z

This is Whitsuntide Easter performing in their home country of Holland. Although they were advertised as performing at the Kamperland Festival in 1978 they did not attend.

The Heavenly Grooves blog now has Grapevine's Whitsuntide Easter Next Time You Play a Wrong Note...make it a short one album to download.
So we can stop saving our pennies for this rarity of rarities. Production was by John Pac and Pete Yates-Round. The sound? very much progressive rock in the Dutch tradition with long instrumental introductions and the merest smidgeon of folk influence.

I'll be reviewing a range of the less valuable Grapevine albums in the near future. What's becoming clear is how the team from Parchment truly put their stamp on this label, leading to consistently interesting production work over a series of several hundred, very diverse albums.

This was our posting sometime ago with a picture of Parchment playing at the 1978 Kamperland Festival, which was in Holland.

(Download policy: we'll post links to downloads for albums that are not available in CD form or readily on the second hand market. If you're a copyright holder and have objections, please let us know)
(Posting up-dated Jan 2008 to make clear venue was not Kamperland Festival. There's also a discussion on this on the next post)

Voiz and Pete Yates-Round

2007-01-22T20:12:00.000Z

Thanks to the new Heavenly Grooves blog I've been able to listen to one of the Grapevine albums, Boanerges by the Dutch rock band Voiz.

This was produced in 1978 by Pete Yates-Round the "last" member of Parchment. It's a great album in the classic 70s rock mode - but it also contains traces of the lightness of feel and experimentation that you'd expect from Parchment. The standard review, copied on Heavenly Grooves, praises the flute playing but there's also an astonishing use of a ukelele, mandolin-style.

Pete Yates-Round was discovered by the band playing solo in Holland and it seems that Grapevine maintained strong links in both Holland and Northern Ireland. When Brian Smith left after Shamblejam, the band played as a two piece for a while until they came to Chepstow, when, apparently, the organiser demanded a three-piece. Yates-Round was drafted in and John Pac, quoted in Buzz, recalled: "The guy said it was the best he had ever heard us."

A quick Google search suggests Yates-Round has had a subsequent career either as a publisher or a solo musician - or possibly both.

Voiz seemed to have produced a second album Disaster Electronics, the following year. There is no sign of it on the second hand market but Boanerges is selling for about 200 dollars. Meanwhile that elusive Whitsuntide Easter album goes for about 400 dollars and Reynard's first album is up to $155. Also no sign of Rufaro, which we think is another Grapevine rock album, so expect a scramble when that appears.

We have a number of Grapevine albums on order but are reluctant to say more for fear of prices continuing to rise. We should stress that this site is not in the game of bidding or trading high prices for these albums. Wonder who has the masters and the rights to the catalogue.

Roundabout launch

2007-01-22T17:08:00.000Z

Phil Janvier is a former member of Roundabout, the Liverpool based arts movement associated with Parchment.

His blog now contains some details of an event on January 30th when plans for the Roundabout 08 event will be shared. There are also some recollections of his time working with the band.

"Come ride upon my roundabout
Come swing upon my swing
Come walk upon the water
Play your part in anything"

Grapevine

2007-01-03T23:39:00.000Z

After the release of Shamblejam in 1975 the band were at a low ebb, struggling to stay in business.

Although the album was their first to be released in the USA and is one of the great prog folk albums of the 70s, their US-based label Myrrh do not appear to have granted them a US tour. This was not to take place until November 1977.

Sometime in 1976 the British label Pilgrim came to the rescue. Brian Smith had left and John Pac and Sue McClellan took on Pete Yates-Round after meeting him in Holland.

Pilgrim hired the three musicians as a production team with John Pac as head of production. There is some confusion as to what point the Grapevine label was launched as many of the releases seem to have been under the Pilgrim label.

By the time of the release of Rehearsal for a Reunion on Grapevine in late 1977 the trio had been involved in the production of some 40 albums. The three provided guitar, mandolin, drums and backing vocals on many of the records - Pac was the mandolin player and Yates-Round the drummer. The range of output is said to have included choral and classical work.

Examples of the work included: Stewart and Kyle Yours Ever, producer Pac; Koinonia Gentle as Morning, producer McClellan; Ben Forde The Supreme Sacrifice, producer Yates-Round; Rufaro Rufaro, producer Pac.

Stewart and Kyle were quite well known, Koinonia was an Irish choir whilst, judging by their album cover, Rufaro may have been a heavy metal band.

Source: Pilgrim Advertising Feature, Buzz Magazine October 1977

2007

2007-01-03T15:19:00.000Z

Well we now know one or two people are reading this blog so here's a list of tasks for the coming year

I'm going to get answers to some of my questions and also to some of yours, if you let this site know what they are.

First of all I have an invitation to put some questions to the great John Pac. I'll be in touch with John in due course but probably after some more research.

I've uncovered a stack of old Buzz magazines. This was the British gospel rock magazine and over the years its articles and interviews chronicle the rise and fall of a truly great band. I'll be posting some of those in the near future.

I also want to find out about the environment the band operated in and what their legacy is. In particular I want to find out more about the Grapevine label which emerged from a relatively stodgy British gospel publisher, Pilgrim, and seems to have been given its head to record music from a large number of innovative and not particularly mainstream musicians, such as Reynard.

Ultimately it released Parchment's last album Rehearsal for a Reunion but before that it was using band members in its production studios and seems to have given John Pac his entry into the music publishing business.

Much of this music is now causing excitement and involves bands few people knew about at the time. They cannot be found in the pages of Buzz, for instance. I'm looking forward to hearing samples of the music of the Dutch band Whitsuntide Easter for instance but, regrettably, it is unlikely to be through buying copies of their album which retails for several hundred pounds.

For 2007, both questions and answers are welcome!

River's last gig

2006-11-16T11:33:00.000Z

...will be on Saturday December 2nd 2006, the band has announced.

It's at Walton-on-Thames Methodist Church, Terrace Road, Surrey (south London) at 7.30pm, admission £5.

Like Parchment, River have produced four CDs since 1998, mostly of Sue Mack compositions.

Here's a picture of them in concert in October 2004, Sue Mack closest to camera:

Will there be a reunion?

2006-11-13T23:22:00.000Z

I understand there are hopes for a reunion of the Christian "Liverpool Scene" of which Parchment was central.

The event has been styled Roundabout 2008 and aims to reunite the people who worked with Roundabout Multimedia. The musicians cited are Trinity Folk, Parchment, Keith Rycroft and Reynard.

Liverpool is to be the European Capital of Culture in 2008. The Roundabout 2008 website doesn't contain much information but is going to be worth keeping an eye on.

Reynard

2006-11-12T22:57:00.000Z

This little-known gospel band from Liverpool released two albums of traditional-sounding English folk in the late 70s, using the influence of English carols to create new music.

Their first album from 1976 Fresh From The Earth had major input from members of the last line-up of Parchment. It was produced by John Pac and Sue McClellan and Pete Yates-Round provided backing vocals.

I had never heard of them although they recorded with the same label, Grapevine, as issued Parchment's last album.

Even more interesting is the identity of the band's mandolin player, Dave Rycroft, presumably related to Keith Rycroft, the Parchment founder member who left following the severance of their contract with Pye Records in about 1974.

Fresh From the Earth contains a version of Golden Game which, therefore, predates Parchment's version on Rehearsal for a Reunion and seems to have more lyrics.

Reynard must have been reasonably well known as they headlined at Kamperland, Holland, in 1978 along with Parchment. They released their second album Green Anthem in 1979. Prior to 1975 they were known as Flight.

Their music is hard to come by but is available at this site.

Folk is not a four letter word

2006-10-25T00:29:00.000Z

Parchment's Son of God will feature on a new compilation CD, Folk is Not a Four Letter Word 2, to be released on November 20th. This is the second compilation of acid folk by Manchester-based musician Andy Votel, I understand.

Odd the way that song, from the Light Up the Fire album, has gained prominence.

Caedmon

2006-10-24T21:11:00.000Z

Some time ago I came across a directory of Christian music bands which listed just two under the heading of acid folk, Parchment and Caedmon. I assumed they meant Caedmon's Call, a popular and talented US folk rock band. Pandora certainly include them in our Parchment radio station.

Now it turns out there really was a Caedmon. They are more obscure even than Water into Wine Band. They put out their single studio album in 1978 and then disbanded. It was released a year or two ago on CD by the acid folk label Kissing Spell, who also rereleased Water into Wine Band. There is also a live album. According to Kissing Spell it is perhaps "the greatest folk rock album ever".

The album is a work of art in every sense. 1978 is significant. The band consisted of a group of friends at Edinburgh University who played together for four years before being comfortable enough about their music to put out an album. That is a similar history to Water into Wine Band who were at Cambridge University. There was an album and two more tracks released separately on single.

Listening to it, I heard the influence of Wishbone Ash, the prog rock band of the 70s on the album. But there is also much pure folk and, if there is a theme, it is about the Celtic saints, Columba and Caedmon.

Of course by 1978 there was no market for this music, even amongst the captive Xtian audience, unless you were prepared to hack it around the folk festivals. This was Parchment's last year. So Caedmon should be seen as a project rather than an album or a band, reaching its apogee in a classic but little recognised piece of music. A work of art indeed.

Our radio station

2006-10-15T20:09:00.000Z

Now at last you can listen to the World of Parchment on our own radio station, based on Pandora.com.

There's a couple of Parchment tracks and contemporaries such as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Incredible String Band. There's a great deal of Judee Sill and other versions of great songs such as Pack Up Your Sorrows (the Joan Baez version). There are rarities such as Water into Wine Band and some obscure acid folk bands and modern groups of a similar ilk such as Caedmon's Call. There are influential songwriters such as John Lennon. And there's mandolin and sitar and acoustic guitar but as little blue grass as possible.

Trinity Folk live!

2006-09-23T20:36:00.000Z

Some pictures of the Trinity Folk from 1971, showing they were a four-piece band. The linchpin appears to have been John Pac. The first picture is from the Sound Vision in Concert album sleeve from 1971.

The second appears to have been an event, in Liverpool from September 1971.

The caption lists the group members as Pete (guitar, autoharp and mandolin), Sue (guitar),Norman (banjo and guitar) and John (guitar & sitar). So no Keith Ryecroft at this point. Pete and Norman would appear to be the same guys as at Sound Vision but a year later they had been replaced by Keith Rycroft. The puzzle is that the woman looks nothing like Sue McClellan. Either the photo has been crudely edited - or Sue McClellan's predecessor was another 'Sue'. Not impossible, but the date suggests the explanation is some crude editing with scissors and pen that went wrong.

Rehearsal's double sleeve

2006-09-23T20:26:00.000Z

Here's the double sleeve edition of Rehearsal for a Reunion

Rehearsal reunited

2006-09-15T21:03:00.000Z

Bob Dylan has led me to the discovery that there were two versions of Rehearsal for a Reunion. The album came out originally in a blue double sleeve with a cartoonish depiction of the band on the back. This showed the two guys, at the time John Pac and Pete Yates-Round in a balloon with Sue McCellan on a parachute. This was the one I had originally. The second version was a single sleeve, completely redesigned with new fonts and colours by a second graphics company. The lyrics were on an insert. The only common feature is the photograph, as featured here.

Curiously it is Golden Game which confirms that even the lyrics were typeset for a second time. In the first version the first line is "Keep on Walking Where the Angels Showed", in the second it is "Keep on Walking When the Angels Showed".

Both versions give the hook line of the first verse as "Over the Old Golden Land", changing it later to "Over in the Old Golden Land". However it is clearly sung as 'in' throughout - indicating the flexible nature of the words of this song.

Curious the way the sleeve was redesigned for an album which can't have sold a massive number of copies and wasn't sold in the USA.

* Footnote (March 2007)- Pete Yates-Round explains: "Because of the budget we were entitled to a gatefold and after talking to the designers the sleeve was designed and printed. It didn't turn out how we all imagined it would so due to another pressing of the album it was decided to go to the single one. Incidentally I do not have a copy of the gatefold!"

When the deal goes down

2006-09-07T22:35:00.000Z

Bob Dylan's tribute to Parchment? No, that would be far-fetched but quite possibly a tribute to the Incredible String Band.

The hookline of Dyan's hymn-like song, released as a single from Modern Times, comes from the traditional spiritual Golden Game, recorded by Parchment on Rehearsal for a Reunion.

The phrase "When the deal goes down" seems to be specific to the String Band version of the song rather than the original spiritual.

Parchment changed the String Band's words slightly to
"When the deal goes down, I'll rest my crown, Over in the old golden land"

The String Band's version, incorporated into their song Job's Tears : "When the deal goes down, I'll put my crown, Over in the old golden land"

The traditional version: "When the devil goes down, I'll take my crown, Over in the old golden land"

In one of his verses Dylan rhymes the line thus:
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Dylan's song and Golden Game are "end of life" songs, both anticipating eventual reunion. Dylan's lyrics are of course a little more opaque than the original. I've embedded a link to the video on YouTube in the heading.

This is the String Band's version of Golden Game in full:

Keep on walking where the angels showed
(All will be one)
Travelling where the saints have trod
Over in the old golden land
In the golden book of the golden game
The golden angel wrote my name
When the deal goes down I'll put my crown
Over in the old golden land

I won't need to kiss you when we're there
(All will be one)
I won't need to miss you when we're there
Over in the old golden land

We'll understand it better in the sweet bye and bye
You won't need to worry and you won't have to cry
Over in the old golden land

This, I understand, is the original version in full:
In the golden book of the golden game
A golden angel wrote my name
When the devil goes down
I'll take my crown
Over in the old golden land

You won't have to miss me when we're there
-all will be one all will be one
You won't have kisse me when we're there
-over in the old golden land

We'll understand it better in the sweet by and by
-all will be one, all will be one
You won't have to worry and you won't have to cry
-over in the old golden land

There in the land that is brighter than day
-all will be one, all will be one
The father will be waiting across the way
-over in the old golden land

And if you want to hear Parchment's highly-praised acapella version you will have to track down the vinyl. For reasons discussed previously, it's not on Simply...Parchment or any other CD.

I'm going to try embedding Dylan's video here:

They're on Pandora

2006-09-07T00:35:00.000Z

Good news.

Pandora.com now includes two tracks from Parchment - Love is Come Again and Son of God. That's because their library now includes the Under the Silent Tree compilation of 70s acid folk (see earlier blog).

I'm looking forward maybe to hearing some other tracks from the compilation on pandora as I have not got round to getting it yet. Most of the reviews identified the Parchment songs as the highlights of the album so the rest is intriguing.

You can listen to the Parchment songs on pandora simply by entering their names or the name of the band. Both these songs come from the Light Up the Fire album.

Shamblejam

2006-08-30T00:33:00.000Z

Well the growing interest in Shamblejam is creating rarity value.

One vinyl seller now prices it at 149.92 dollars.

Google now lists 90 mentions of it, many of them in groups and blogs over the last twelve months.

For instance vinylvulture.co.uk has recent mentions praising this album and Light Up the Fire - this on a site which is pretty cynical about the Jesus music scene.

The problem is the Simply Parchment collection is simply not good enough. All four albums were produced as concepts by John Pantry and mixing the tracks up undermines the work of the fourth "member" of the band, John Pantry as producer.

Reputedly the other British Jesus folk band of the period, Water into Wine Band saw the price of their second album Harvesttime reach some 900 dollars on the internet. Somebody then brought it out as a CD, which I have. It is well worth a listen but is not nearly as dynamic as, say, Shamblejam. And where did the name come from? I have never been able to find any clues. It is likely John Pac would tell us if it was reissued.

Thankfully I have Shamblejam on tape so I can listen to it in the car. I do have the vinyl and I'm not selling it. Time for a CD, Kingsway?

British folk

2006-08-28T23:21:00.000Z

BBC4 have been showing a series called Folk Britannia.

I've only seen one episode about the 60s scene - but that was pretty interesting in terms of Parchment influences

I never thought they should be compared with Steeleye Span or even Fairport, which specialised in using modern instruments to perform traditional songs.

Rather Parchment was one of those bands that used the folk medium as a base for a wider range of music.

The programme identified The Incredible String Band as having pioneered acid folk and that makes sense as Parchment performed Golden Game on Rehearsal for a Reunion. Golden Game is a traditional spiritual but the String Band used their own version of the words - and it was these words that Parchment also used for their highly praised acapella version.

Then on a week or two ago to the Sidmouth Folk Festival for a day as I was in Devon. It was a pleasant enough experience but tended to suggest to me that folk has stultified. It seems to be mainly about recreating the past rather than acting as a vibrant, creative medium in its own right.

I enjoyed watching the Red Square Balalaika and Domra Ensemble, from Devon, performing on the sea front. These are instruments from central Asia and eastern Europe and seem to be part of the mandolin family.

Influences

2006-08-28T23:12:00.000Z

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.

Pack Up Your Sorrows

2006-02-19T15:23:00.000Z

Richard Farina's song was popularised by Judy Collins and Joan Baez in the mid-1960s.

It was one of just two unoriginal songs on the Light Up the Fire album and Parchment (and their producer) demonstrated their ability to make it all their own, finishing with a folk club singalong and the line "We all live in a Yellow Submarine".

I had thought the band must have picked up the song from Baez or Collins, but according to the sleeve notes of the album, they first heard the song in a Liverpool folk club.

The writer of the song was just 29 when he died in 1966 in Carmel, California. More info can be found at richardandmimi.com