Bloody Brilliant

Ten years ago, I wrote an article for the local magazine in Bryan, Texas, on a local musician named Ruthie Foster. She was about to release her first album. The lyrics of her songs told her story; I wove them into my article and used the rest of my words to try to convey what a big voice came out of this teeny woman - a voice that filled a room and your soul, and all at once made you want to know her.

I've seen her maybe a dozen times, in coffee houses (Sweet Eugene's, was it?), big bars (Third Floor Cantina -- remember that one?), Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas, and Iota in Virginia. I had tickets to see her last November -- she was on tour with Bo Diddley. But I got that flu that brought down Washington -- the kind that made you weep when you thought about leaving the house. I was so sad to miss her -- I really wanted to see her bring down the house at Strathmore Hall.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw her in the lineup for the Cambridge Folk Festival. In Cambridge, England. Three miles away from my house.

I was talking her up on Friday night to a woman from Manchester. The woman asked me if Ruthie tours with a band or played with anyone else. "Sometimes," I said. "But I like her best when it's just her and her guitar." Saturday afternoon, she proved she doesn't even need the guitar.

Ruthie Foster, Cambridge Folk Festival from dceditors and Vimeo.

She played twice more at the festival, and the last one, in the smallest tent at the festival, was absolutely packed with people who wanted more. "Every year there's one artist that people just can't stop talking about," the BBC2 guy who introduced her said. "This year, it's Ruthie Foster." I'm so dang proud of her. She's better than ever.

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All in all, it was an awesome festival. I (KT) was there all 4 days, and JT joined me on Saturday. We plopped in front of the main stage for, oh, 12 hours or so and heard some darn good music.

Hangin' Out at the Cambridge Folk Festival from dceditors and Vimeo.

We heard a fun 11-piece brass band from Romania called Fanfare Ciocarlia (Fahnfaray Cho-carla), famous for their accompaniment for Borat's Born to be Wild. They were great fun. I have a video of them, too, but it simply doesn't convey how many people were moved to get on their feet and bounce to the Eastern European version of an oompah band on speed. (Seriously -- click on the Born to be Wild link and you'll see what I mean.) "Tankyaoooww," the band leader exclaimed at the end of every song.

Other folks I/we saw that we liked were Four Men and a Dog, Bellowhead ("now we're going to play you a disco sea shanty, from the Oxford Book of Disco Sea Shanties," they quipped at one point), Fiddlers' Bid, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (they do a hysterical rendition of the Theme from Shaft), Ricky Skaggs (although it was a bit weird to be in England listening to Kentucky bluegrass) and Shooglenifty, which closed the festival with a spectacular light show and music that had everyone on their feet dancing a jig.

The big headliner was Joan Baez. She followed Fanfare Ciocarlia. She said early on in her set, "How do you pronounce the name of the band that just played?" [various shouts from the audience.] "Oh, right -- Bloody Brilliant," she repeated, as the audience laughed in agreement.

She was brilliant herself, with a voice that's as great now as it was 40 years ago. As she sang, I thought about how many generations she has sung to, and how many of her songs have been used as (and are meant as) calls for peace. "A lot of the songs that I was singing 40, 50 years ago are relevant again today," she says. "The good news is that a lot of those songs are very beautiful and I love singing them. The bad news is, I have to."

So I have my answer: Folk music is very much the same, no matter time or place. But perhaps sometimes with bagpipes.

Cool as Folk

I grew up surrounded by music. Probably not in the way that famous musicians mean when they say they grew up around music, but the radio was always on, a record was playing, one or both of my parents were humming or whistling and idle tune, or someone was mercilessly banging on one instrument or another, whether or not they knew how to play it.

When the radio was on on Saturdays, it was Prairie Home Companion, probably my biggest exposure to folk. But my parents' appreciation for singer-songwriters was also in the mix: Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Paul Simon, Carly Simon, James Taylor, etc.

When I saw the ad for the Cambridge Folk Festival, I thought, "why not go?" (Well, that's a bit of a fib; there's a more specific reason that you'll hear about by the end of the weekend.) I coughed up more money than I'd like to admit for a full festival pass and have been working like crazy this week to free up my Thursday night and Friday. (I wasn't entirely successful, but that's another story.)

When I got to the festival on Thursday, I pondered what folk music looks like these days, and what it looks like in the U.K. I mean, Joan Baez is the headliner at this festival after all. In the U.S., it would be an Appalachian jug band, or perhaps a lone guitarist singing a war protest. (Wonder if that's changed since the 1970s. Sigh.)

At least on Thursday, this is what folk music in the U.K. looks like:



Breabach, at Cambridge Folk Festival from dceditors and Vimeo.
Dueling bagpipes. I LOVE it. That's it from me until late Sunday night; I'm off to the fair.

Wellie Watching

Unlike much of the rest of England, We're not flooding here. Or at least, not as dramatically as some of the pictures you've seen. Our drainage must be good, and we're not in the path of runoff from other flooded areas. (Or something.) However, we have been getting quite a lot of the rain. The ground is pretty soaked, and in our most recent storm, which featured strong winds, some trees came down that simply couldn't hold themselves into the saturated ground.

On Tuesday this week, we finally got a day of sunshine. It was like that commercial (oh, wait, it's a British commercial) where everyone walks away from their desk, goes outside, and looks at the sky. "Wow, what's that?" we all pondered. "That orb in the sky! It's so ... warm! and bright!"

Then it thunderstormed Wednesday. And Thursday, just before the Cambridge Folk Festival began, it poured a good couple of inches. All day on the radio they were saying, "Be sure to bring your wellies!" I laughed, thinking that the DJs were saying that in jest. I thought there would be a few people wellies -- knee-high rubber boots -- but almost *everyone* was wearing wellies. Well, OK, maybe just half of everyone. But that's still a lot of folks! Who knew so many people had wellies. And in different colors! And patterns! I think I will have to get me some wellies.

2008 anyone?

First, we missed two cheese-rolling events and now this. In good news for my waistline, but sad news in most other regards, it turns out we will both be out of the country during the Great British Cheese Festival, a celebration of la fromage that includes 100+ cheese-makers. This year's event was also just outside of Oxford, which would have made it a fun trip. Oh well. We will mark next year's festival on the calendar--perhaps 2008 will be the year of cheese!--jt

Friday night quiz shows

We're up to the point where we understand maybe half of the jokes and references on the British quiz shows, of which there are a frillion. The joke of the night tonight comes from a show called QI. The host defined demonym -- a word that describes a people, such as French or British.

"What do you call someone from the United States?"

Answer #1: "Obese."

Answer #2: "Burger-eating invasion monkeys."

Thanks a Million (Calories)

So KT and I are walking more, watching less TV, and biking again for the first time in a long time. But that merely helps us survive all the food festivals, sausage and mash, beers at the pubs and...British sweets. When in a new country one must try its candy and other desserts, of course. And I have, far too often. Brits seems to love dense chocolate and caramel covered shortbread cookie-cakes called Millionaires (updated recipe link here--scroll down) . They are at all the delis where one gets lunch--perhaps the equivalent of the American classic chocolate chip cookie. There's lot of tasty variations I've discovered (one pictured below).

The New York Times also recently had an interesting article relating that many people prefer British chocolate bars to American ones (The World's Best Candy Bars? English, of Course) . It describes people bringing back suitcases full of candy bars from England. Here's an excerpt:

Mr. Smart, who has lived in the United States for 25 years, learned early on in his life here that British and American chocolate bars are different, even if they share a name and a look.
''One day I was eating a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk and I thought, this has absolutely no flavor,'' he said. ''I looked at the label and saw it was made by Hershey. I was outraged.''
Cadbury Dairy Milk is the iconic British candy bar, the one most likely to be tucked into the suitcase of a Yankee tourist looking for an inexpensive souvenir. Versions are filled with caramel, whipped fondant, whole nuts or pellets of shortbread cookie.

It's a different bar from the Cadbury bar available in the United States. According to the label, a British Cadbury Dairy Milk bar contains milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat and emulsifiers. The version made by the Hershey Company, which holds the license from Cadbury-Schweppes to produce the candy in the United States under the British company's direction, starts its ingredient list with sugar. It lists lactose and the emulsifier soy lecithin, which keeps the cocoa butter from separating from the cocoa. The American product also lists ''natural and artificial flavorings.''

Tony Bilsborough, a spokesman for Cadbury-Schweppes in Britain, said his company ships its specially formulated chocolate crumb -- a mash of dried milk and chocolate to which cocoa butter will be added later -- to Hershey, Pa. What happens next accounts for the differences.
''I imagine it's down to the final processing and the blending,'' he said. After consulting with chocolate manufacturers in each country, Cadbury tries to replicate the taste people grew up with, he said. In the United States, that means a bar that is more akin to a Hershey bar, which to many British palates tastes sour.

Hmm, maybe I'll take the long walk to work today....jt

How tall is the corn?

In Wisconsin, and in many parts of the Midwest, the progress of the summer is measured by the height of the corn. So, in case you're wondering, as of 15 July, the corn in England ...

is THIS tall.