Billy Connolly recalled being in a room with you, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake and John Martyn. Did you feel you were collectively doing something special? poscopy
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That might have been at the Royal Festival Hall [in 1969], where Fairport Convention had Nick and John as openers and Billy must have been backstage. He\u2019d have been in the Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty, before he evolved from a banjo player who told jokes into a comedian who played a bit of banjo. He was always a fantastic bloke and we\u2019ve been friends for a long time.<\/p>\n
There was a great camaraderie between the stable of acts Joe Boyd produced: Fairport, the Incredible String Band, John Martyn, Chris McGregor. We felt different, not special, and didn\u2019t feel successful because we weren\u2019t. None of these people really sold many records in their lifetimes, but people are still discovering them now. This album is my latest attempt to sell some units.<\/p>\n
Have you ever been on a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning and did that inspire the song? llamapaca
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I\u2019ve never ridden a Vincent Black Lightning. There\u2019s only about 15 left, but when I was a kid one of the neighbours had a Vincent Black Shadow \u2013 a very similar motorcycle \u2013 and us kids thought it was one of the most beautiful things we\u2019d ever seen. I was casting around for a British equivalent to American romantic imagery, so thought it would be a good object to build a drama around. Boy, girl, motorcycle, armed robbery \u2026<\/p>\n
The narrator in your song Cold Kisses is one of the most chilling characters I\u2019ve ever met in a song. How much of that rogue is you? If it\u2019s none, where did you summon him up from? LeroyDeSwoon
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He wants to compare himself with her old boyfriends. Some of us have been there \u2013 not necessarily going through someone\u2019s drawers, but looking at someone\u2019s diary or emails, trying to find out more about a new partner. It\u2019s a sneaky thing to do, obviously, but in the guise of entertainment songwriting can dig below the surface of what\u2019s considered civilised and into an area that\u2019s slightly uncomfortable. I love that.<\/p>\n
On the new album, the song Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking is based on people I met in the psychedelic era who were a bit edgy or violent. Then acid came along and they suddenly went all peace and love, but it wouldn\u2019t last. So the last verse asks: \u201cWho\u2019ll win the battle before the nurse pulls the plug? The Kings Road hippy or the Sauchiehall thug?\u201d Conflicted human beings. I thought John Lennon was a bit like that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Listen to Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking.<\/p>\n
Could you tell a nice \u2013 not sad \u2013 story that I haven\u2019t heard about Sandy Denny or Nick Drake? katstu
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Nick was so taciturn and hard to know that I couldn\u2019t say a lot of uplifting stuff about him. Sandy was a terrible passenger, hypersensitive. In a car, she\u2019d be going: \u201cWhat was that noise?\u201d \u201cWhy did you put the brakes on?\u201d Eventually, our tour manager [in Fairport Convention] had to teach her about the internal combustion engine: \u201cI\u2019m now changing gear.\u201d On an airplane, she was impossible. Flying to Los Angeles, she spilled a gin and tonic in my lap in the first hour, although on a boat she was totally at ease, in her element, hence so many of her songs about the sea. From what I\u2019ve heard, when she finally got a licence, she was driving into ditches and all sorts. Bless her.<\/p>\n
Who is the inspiration behind Beeswing? EddieHaskell
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People say: \u201cOh, what a beautiful song about [the folk singer] Anne Briggs,\u201d but it\u2019s more complicated. When I lived in Suffolk in the 1970s, a tramp used to come looking for odd jobs. He\u2019d do a bit of gardening, we\u2019d wash his clothes and feed him and he\u2019d tell extraordinary stories about his life. So his stories were part of the song, but also Sandy and Anne were great friends and it was really Sandy\u2019s sense of Anne being this free spirit. But I need credit as a writer of fiction, too, because it\u2019s not about anybody.<\/p>\n
Do you have a favourite cover of any of your songs? Mine is Wall of Death by REM<\/a>. MrsGRafferty Would you have liked to have worked more closely with John Martyn \u2013 at least before he became \u201cdifficult\u201d and his music moved in a different direction? archiebargie Fairport Convention in in 1970. From left: Dave Mattacks (front), Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick. How did the offer to join Eagles come about? BobinDay You were originally a fervent enthusiast for all things British and yet now you live in the US, which seems at odds with everything the UK stands for. Why? DozyDanny What was it like being on stage with Bob Dylan at the Guitar Legends festival in Seville in 1991? You looked on high alert, or anxious. Was there any rehearsal beforehand? MaskedTortilla Your first band was Emil and the Detectives, with Hugh Cornwell, later of the Stranglers. Did you cross paths again? Haigin88 Thompson playing at the New Orleans jazz festival in 1980.
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Wall of Death was a memo to myself: take risks, go to the edge, don\u2019t be complacent. But my favourite cover is The Great Valerio by Swan Arcade, a vocal trio around the folk scene in the 60s and 70s. They did a fantastic job of getting all the dissonant, unusual harmony that exists in the guitar arrangement and ended up with a wonderful piece of music. [Swan Arcade\u2019s] Dave Brady had one arm. The story was that he\u2019d been on his motorcycle and was hurtling towards a brick wall, so stuck his arm out to grab a lamp-post. But he managed to shape a chord with his left hand and strum with his little finger. A great character.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDifficult\u201d is a bit cheeky. John was one of those guitar players, like Martin Carthy<\/a>, who cover all bases. I\u2019m a bit like that myself, so if you put us together there\u2019s a lot of treading on each other\u2019s toes, but we were neighbours for a while in the late 60s and early 70s and used to jam together. Once, we were in Olympic Studios for one of John\u2019s sessions and he played acoustic and I played electric. We jammed for about 20 minutes and it was just wonderful and joyous, but they didn\u2019t have the machine running. We should have done more of that.<\/p>\n
Photograph: Jim McCrary\/Redferns<\/p>\n
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Offers would come through lawyers or management. I don\u2019t think it was ever someone from a band phoning up saying: \u201cWe\u2019d love to have you.\u201d When I was on tour with Sandy in \u201971, I did get a firm approach to join Linda Ronstadt\u2019s band because four of them had left to form Eagles. I thought: I can\u2019t jump ship. Sandy would kill me \u2026 and do I wanna live and work with a bunch of Californians? I wanted to do my Anglo-Celtic thing and sing in my own accent. I was asked to join a later incarnation of the Animals when they wanted to dump [the guitarist] Hilton Valentine<\/a>. Shocking stuff. I was asked to join the Band twice, but I thought they were gonna drink themselves to death.<\/p>\n
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For the last 40 years, I\u2019ve had a place in London and a place in America. I lived in Santa Monica for a long time, but you\u2019re surrounded by Brits in the music and film business. You can\u2019t go 10 or 20 yards without a pub screening Premier League games or a fish and chip shop. Plus, when I open up my computer, the Guardian is my homepage. You can be connected anywhere in the world, but I\u2019ve never felt connected with American culture. I\u2019m not going to sing Jan and Dean songs about surfing. My inner landscape is London, Scotland or some dark moor in Bront\u00eb country.<\/p>\n
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I was on the road with [the American singer-songwriter] Bonnie Raitt<\/a> when I got a call from [the guitarist] Phil Manzanera<\/a>. Word was Bob wanted to do some acoustic numbers together, which was great. We did rehearse in the dressing room, and rehearsed All Along the Watchtower with his band. When we went on stage, the acoustic guitars had gone out of tune, so I spent the first song trying to tune up \u2013 that was probably high alert \u2013 but once things settled down it was great fun; a great honour to work with Bob.<\/p>\n
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We had the band in school, but by 16 I was playing with Fairport Convention, so I didn\u2019t see Hugh for 40 years. Then, in the 2000s, we were both playing a festival in Spain and picked up the conversation where we left it. Since then, we\u2019ve done some musical things and gigs together and a splendid version of Tobacco Road<\/a> for charity.<\/p>\n
Photograph: David Redfern\/Redferns<\/p>\n