A bun in the oven?

Little did we know 10 months ago, that when we bought our house we also bought this:

 

 

Although it doesn’t look much, this unprepossessing structure is actually a four à pain, or bread oven.

It stands on the end of the boundary between our neighbour’s sister’s land, on the left in the picture, and our other piece of land, with our barn, on the right.

We’d always assumed that it belonged to someone else and the estate agent we dealt with seemed to think it did, too. However, whilst we were clearing the area yesterday our neighbour passed by and we learned the truth about it.

Yes, we now have our very own four à pain.

It stands about 6 feet high and is circular with a diameter of about 10 feet.

Originally, we suspect that it looked something more like this:

 

However, the domed roof has collapsed and the front stonework forming the doorway has gone, assuming it was there, although there’s an outside chance that it may all have fallen inside.

We spent a while clearing the back of it this morning and revealed a wall made of thin stones, which makes sense as there are vast deposits of slate and other sedimentary rocks locally.

 

Apart from the obvious differences in the building materials, it looks remarkably like the example shown above, with the remnants of a dome clearly visible, and the overall shape seeming to be a good match.

Date wise I’m assuming that it’s contemporary with our house, which predates 1840 at least – if the Napoleonic cadastral plans are any guide. Our neighbours informed us that a M. Boulaye who lived in our house used to bake bread for the local people and as our house was the main dwelling in our lieu-dit then I’m making a guess that the bread oven has been here for a long time. The shape of it certainly looks like other 19th century examples I’ve found online.

We plan to strip off all the brambles – evil, evil fuckers that’ll rip your arms to shreds – and the ivy and weeds and then have a dig about inside it. There may be some collapsed stones and who knows what else.

At the very least, it should make a nice feature along the communal road here and possibly get planted up with something colourful – Ipomoea is the current favourite, although I fancy growing strawberries in it.

Song of the day – Kevin Gilbert’s Toy Matinee with ‘Last Plane Out’. Great playing, vocals, composition, production…what’s not to like?

I’m now cooking dinner – baked smoked gammon, Noirmoutier potatoes and haricots verts from our neighbours’ garden; all washed down with cheap rose.

 

Climb up on my knee…

It’s a sad fact that with the recent death of Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, the genre of music called ‘the Blues’ lost someone who was probably our last link with the people who have made the music what it is today and enriched its legacy out of all proportion to its humble beginnings.

Honeyboy was the last of the Delta bluesmen – as far as we know – and he actually knew and played with people like Robert Johnson. In fact, he stated that he was actually with Johnson when he drank the poisoned whiskey that allegedly killed him.

Having said all that, the world of the itinerant black blues musician in the 1930s and 1940s was so badly recorded (indeed, why would anyone grasp the significance of musical events at this time and preserve it for posterity?) that rumour, speculation and even lies have often obscured the real version of events.

What we’re left with is a mish-mash of anecdotal histories and biographies that both fascinates and frustrates.

Take a blues great like Elmore James, for example.

James was a seminal figure in the Blues, with his trademark slide riffs, his poetic lyrics and his frail but commanding voice. He cut dozens upon dozens of sides for a multitude of record labels – often recording the same songs or slightly adapted versions – and learned his craft in the company of Johnson and other Delta notables of the 1930s and 40s.

However, dig just a little deeper and an interview with his elder cousin ‘Homesick’ James casts some doubt on how much kudos Elmore should really have. Homesick claims that he taught his younger cousin how to play slide, that he either co-wrote or wrote classic Elmore James songs like ‘Dust my Broom’ and played as much, if not more slide as Elmore on record and at gigs.

Quite how much Homesick is to be believed is hard to say. There are obvious financial incentives to be economical with the truth, and no-one ever wrote down what actually went on at the time.

Thus, we’re left with stories that may or may not be true but can never be verified.

And that’s part of the pleasure I get from early blues music and the study of its proponents.

It’s a sort of mythology and as long as you’re content to accept that much of it has little basis in truth then it’s as fascinating, in its way, as any Greek or Roman tale of heroism and divine machination.

One of the most interesting characters in blues history – and one who epitomises everything I find engrossing about it – is Sonny Boy Williamson.

To be exact, Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Actually, to be even more exact, Aleck or Alex or Willie Rice Miller or Ford.

(When I say exact, I mean as exact as Sonny Boy II wanted to be about himself…)

He was also known variously as Sonny Boy Williams, Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, Little Boy Blue, The Goat and Footsie, but that’s another whole shitload of stories that’ll have to keep for another time…

However, I hear you ask, if Aleck was known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, was there a Sonny Boy Williamson I?

To which I can truthfully reply, yes there certainly fucking was.

Sonny Boy the First was actually born John Lee Curtis Williamson in 1914, dying in 1948.

Like Sonny Boy II, Sonny Boy I was a harmonica player and singer who pioneered the instrument as a solo player, had a great deal of success with his many recordings and kept such illustrious company as Muddy Waters throughout his relatively short professional life.

So, Sonny Boy I and II were both significant harp players and singers, but they weren’t even remotely related.

Why then did Sonny Boy II ‘borrow’ Sonny Boy I’s stage name?

Well, if you thought “money”, then you’ve guessed the reason.

As this very informative article puts it:

By the early ’40s, he was the star of KFFA`s King Biscuit Time, the first live blues radio show to hit the American airwaves. As one of the major ruses to occur in blues history, his sponsor-the Interstate Grocery Company-felt they could push more sacks of their King Biscuit Flour with Miller posing as Chicago harmonica star John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson.

It was a rather clumsy deception, but it obviously worked as the name stuck with Miller and there don’t seem to have been any lawsuits. Although the Insterstate Grocery Company didn’t actually pay him much, they allowed him to plug his gigs on air and this helped push up his earnings by getting bigger crowds to see him.

Indeed, such ruses involving aliases and stage names weren’t uncommon, with such luminaries as the late, great John Lee Hooker recording for different record companies under a variety of names early on in his career.

As well as his own name, he recorded under the names of Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, The Boogie Man, Johnny Lee (getting slightly less imaginative now), John Lee, and even John Lee Booker and John Lee Cooker.

The latter two names must have taken fucking ages to think up…

Anyway, to his grave, Sonny Boy II dubbed himself the ‘real Sonny Boy Williamson’, in spite of appropriating Sonny Boy I’s stage name whilst #1 was at the height of his career.

It probably helped both men that Sonny Boy #2 didn’t start recording until long after #1 was dead and buried, although his recording career didn’t exactly set the world alight. In fact, somewhat ironically, it wasn’t until his contract was sold on to Checker Records – a subsidiary of the famous Chess Records Company – because he was so difficult to work with that he started to get blues chart success.

Recording with the likes of Willie Dixon and Robert Lockwood Jr, Sonny Boy II wrote and released many songs which have become blues standards – all marked by witty, sometimes desolate lyrics, a quavering baritone and sharp piercing harp lines. Notable successes include ‘Eyesight to the Blind’, ‘Help Me’, ‘Checkin’ up on my Baby’, Nine Below Zero’, ‘Don’t Start me to Talkin’’ and ‘Bring it on Home’, the latter covered by Led Zeppelin on their second album, but attributed to Page and Plant…

Sonny Boy II was a real showman. He’d play with the harp inside his mouth and up his nose.

Here he is from the early 1960s:

He spent a lot of time in Europe towards the end of his career and acquired a rather eccentric image for which he sported a chequerboard suit, a bowler hat, a furled umbrella and a briefcase which held his harps and a bottle of whiskey.

And yes, Sonny Boy #2 liked a drink…in fact, as well as being a drinker he was a gambler, conman, brawler (wiry, but 6 feet tall and often armed with a blade) and ladies man, with a wicked sense of humour,

He was backed by some of the early UK beat groups when he toured the country and dubbed the Animals the ‘Mammimals’ and, with reference to the Yardbirds, he had this to say:

“These British want to play the blues so bad…and they play the blues so bad!”

He died in 1965 soon after he returned to the US, but even his gravestone is somewhat ambivalent – not about his name, but about the year of his birth. Although it states 1908, Sonny Boy #2 claimed it was 1899, although census evidence suggests it was 1912.

If it was 1912, then 53 years of hard living had certainly taken their toll!

However, amongst all the hard living, subterfuge and other roguish antics, Sonny Boy II was generous when it came to helping his fellow players. He mentored a young Howlin’ Wolf – who seems to have been his brother-in-law – and also helped spread the word about a guitarist and singer who went on to be known as BB King.

So, Sonny Boy II was many things throughout his life, but his constant was his music.

As usual, to conclude this post by letting the music do the talking, here’s Aleck, Rice, Sonny Boy II, whoever he was, with one of his classic compositions.

Just him and his harp…

Firebirds and hair

Whilst ferreting about on YouTube trying to find videos to illustrate yesterday’s post about Glen Campbell, I stumbled across a video clip I’d never seen before and that I’d only heard.

It features Cream guesting on the Glen Campbell Show in 1968 performing ‘Sunshine of your Love’ live and was something I’d only ever heard on the Cream box set retrospective ‘Those Were the Days’.

It’s an interesting piece of footage for several reasons.

Clapton is the hairiest he’s ever been and looks somewhat like this:

The guy’s a bit like a human chameleon – he’s gone through what seem like dozens of ‘images’ and never seems to look the same for very long.

He’s also toting a Gibson Firebird – as in the photo above.

Here’s a better picture:

There are lots more photos of a Cream-era Clapton with his Firebird here.

Associated with Les Pauls and SG Les Pauls up until then, Clapton seemed to like his Firebird a lot. He used it extensively in Cream’s last two tours right up until the RAH gigs in London when he used it for the early show, switching to the red ES335 for the late show – which is the one I saw.

It seems pretty obvious that the producer of the Glen Campbell Show told the band to play quietly – or at least turn it down – as Clapton’s tone lacks the distortion which was part of his signature sound at that time. In fact, it’s downright wimpy and takes all the OOOMPH out of the performance which was by the band at its height – after they’d been gigging extensively in the US and before their badly-rehearsed farewell tour when they seemed to be going through the motions.

Anyway, here’s the video in question – a fascinating document that I didn’t know existed, but fascinating for the wrong reasons!

To make up for the rather lacklustre performance, here’s a bit of video someone has cobbled together, featuring some interesting photos and a performance of ‘Sunshine’ that’s very early and very energetic! In fact, the band’s on absolutely blinding form – on fucking fire – with Bruce playing some great bass and Clapton freewheeling all over the top of it.

Stunning!

A ploughman’s and a promenade

We’ve just wrapped up a very pleasant and productive day with our evening meal and then a walk.

We had what I suppose you’d call a ploughman’s lunch this evening.

Some part-cooked petits pains finished off in the oven, some Pilgrim’s Choice Extra Mature Cheddar,  lettuce, tomato, Branston Pickle, home-pickled shallots and some crisps all combined to make a simple but satisfying, delicious and very English meal. We washed it down with cheap rose.

We then took the cats for a walk.

This has become a regular, usually twice daily, ritual. The two cats come either separately or together for a walk down the lane which runs past our neighbours’ garden – complete with beehives – and out into a huge field:

 

Oscar came ahead of Django who must have been busy killing voles – something he’s done a lot of lately.

Here’s Oscar catching up with us:

 

It was very hot today, but there’s a definite autumnal ‘twang’ in the air this evening…

Glen Campbell – more than just a rhinestone cowboy

Mention the name ‘Glen Campbell’ to most people and they’ll probably say ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ or ‘Wichita Linesman’.

However, there’s much, much more to the guy than a few hit records.

I’m prompted to write about Glen because of the sad news that he’s just released what will be his final album and is just about to embark on his last tour because he has Alzheimer’s and won’t be able to do much of anything eventually.

But what is it about him that raises his significance above a few hit records?

Well, you’ve probably heard him more often than you realise because he started off as a session guitarist.  Here what his Wikipedia entry has to say about him:

In 1958, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. He was part of the 1959 line-up of the group the Champs, famous for their instrumental "Tequila". Campbell was in great demand as a session musician in the 1960s. He was part of the studio musicians clique known as "the Wrecking Crew", many of whom went from session to session together as the same group. In addition to Campbell, Hal Blaine on drums, Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Leon Russell on piano, Carol Kaye on bass guitar, Al Casey on guitar were part of this group of session musicians that defined many pop and rock recordings of the era. They were also heard on Phil Spector’s "Wall of Sound" recordings in the early 1960s.

You had to be a consummate musician to be part of the Crew – not just technically brilliant, but able to record track after track as quickly as possible.

He also played on various Beach Boys sessions, including those which produced the sublime Brian Wilson masterpiece ‘Pet Sounds’.

So deeply did Campbell impress Wilson and the rest of the band, that when Brian decided to give up touring and just work in the studio, Campbell joined the band on bass and falsetto harmonies.

 

From L to R – Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Glen Campbell, Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine

During this period, he also contributed to a whole slew of cheapo instrumental albums which spotlighted the guitar – this being a very guitar-orientated time in music. This is actually when I first became aware of him as a friend had an LP (remember those?) with Campbell featured on 12-string guitar, which was all the rage then due to its use in folk as well as by the Beatles and the Byrds.

After his stint with the Beach Boys, Campbell embarked on a very successful solo career. Fortunately, he had good taste in material and covered songs by people like John Hartford, Allen Toussaint and, most notably, Jimmy Webb.

It’s fair to say that Campbell has had his fair share of demons with a recurrent drink problem which came to a head when he was arrested for leaving the scene of a road traffic accident when drunk and assault on a police officer – the latter charge was dropped.

His career had a bit of a renaissance in 2008, after several years going through the motions on the usual circuit of venues demanding the ‘golden oldies’, with the release of a new album that once again showed his great taste in covers:

It was announced in April 2008 that Campbell was returning to his signature label, Capitol, to release his new album, Meet Glen Campbell. The album was released on August 19. With this album he branched off in a different musical direction, covering tracks from artists such as Travis, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jackson Browne and Foo Fighters. It was Campbell’s first release on Capitol in over 15 years. Musicians from Cheap Trick and Jellyfish contributed to the album as well. The first single, a cover of Green Day’s "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", was released to radio in July 2008.

As good as this album is, I don’t think it’s up to the standard of his latest and last offering, ‘Ghost on the Canvas’. This is available from iTunes at a good price and is well worth the download, especially with 2 bonus tracks.

The material is great, with ex-Jellyfish Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. contributing a lot of songs and the session players include all manner of people – listed here.

But back to what originally started off what is a long and successful career – his guitar playing.

Here he is – in 2008 – playing some very nice country style licks:

Great octave work and a very fluent left hand.

How about this – jamming with Steve Lukather on acoustic?

 

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OK, a bit corny I know, but here’s Glen with the late, great Jerry Reed, who Steve Lukather mentioned in the preceding video:

 

To end with, Glen on electric 12-string doing what is very difficult on one of them. No, not fretting it (although for anyone with normal-sized fingers that’s tricky enough!) but bending the strings. Audio only, I’m afraid…

 

Thanks, Glen, and good luck where you’re going.

A lot of fosse about nothing

Today, I are mostly bin clearin’ ditches:

 

 

Before we moved to France, drainage wasn’t something we’d had to bother about.

Rain water went off the roof and from elsewhere, then along pipes and into the sewage system…end of…

However, not being attached to any proper sewage system – it’s mostly a matter for the individual and his fosse septique – you have to make allowances for drainage if you want a dry house and dry land around it.

We had a storm of almost biblical proportions the other weekend, and only a quick drainage channel cutting exercise in the torrential rain averted a flooded dining room.

So, we’re putting drains in:

 

 

However, it’s no use if the water from them doesn’t go anywhere – hence the ditch clearing that I did today. I thought I’d take advantage of the good weather, so girding some old clothes, wellies and gloves I cleared the ditch by hand and then used the brushcutter to tidy it up.

Hot, sweaty and smelly work  – it was 28 degrees and there was no shade – but it had to be done as there are more storms predicted for tomorrow.

However, every cloud, etc, because we should be able to see if the drainage all works before we order some gravel to cover the pipes over.

Should you want to find out more about drains like ours then Wikipedia has an article here.

18 months ago I’d have found it totally boring, but now I find it very interesting indeed…