April was a fantastic month of music gigs with a load of good stuff passing through my locale. Nina Nastasia played a low-key intimate show, one that felt as though she is still finding her feet again as a live performer after a lengthy absence but nevertheless a welcome return. As the audience filed out I overheard one person say “well that was a barrel of laughs” but for me, I have no issue with an artist taking us to a dark place, especially if they have been to one themselves in real life; Nina really has and will probably carry the scars forever, an honest performer. Next, I saw the fortieth anniversary tour of Shonen Knife, playing selected nuggets from their whole career, this was a show where the smile superglued my face from start to finish. Twenty-four hours later it was Saturday night thrills with Half Man Half Biscuit, another band in for the long haul as a pleasingly boozy gig saw a massive eight hundred strong crowd singing along to classic refrains such as “who the fucking hell are Slipknot?”

Pokey Lafarge is such a class Americana act, vintage in style with a polished band, an old-time disposition and an endearing charm as he kicked off a UK visit. Much of his audience wear a similar Bugsy Malone type look making this a reciprocal experience although one was clearly from a whole other dimension when she shouted out “you should be on ‘X Factor’!” The blank look on Pokey’s face said it all, he is far too good for that. I went along to see Gaz Coombes who was fine although a large section of this audience left bemused by his ignoring the entire Supergrass catalogue. However, the main reason I went to see that show was the support act Lonelady whose one-woman loop-enhanced, electric guitar crunching performance was especially enjoyable. The following night I caught the primitive rollercoaster that is Bug Club again with a support act of equal if not higher stature in the Mock Tudors. I had not previously caught how much dry humor, both visually and lyrically, is part of their aesthetic. Now I see that they have risen in my estimation, even that spoken section on ‘Bin Day,’ which I originally thought killed the song, made a bit more sense in this light.

For mostly weekday night gigs it has to be noted that all these shows had decent size, often sellout crowds. It occurred to me this is the core audience who, like me, during the evening at home are likely to be listening to Marc Riley and Gideon Coe on BBC 6Music. It has been announced recently that these two shows, slots that for almost the entire 6Music history have been the backbone of weekday evening output on the station, are to be merged into a later time schedule to make way for a younger ‘new music’ show presented by Tom Ravenscroft and Deb Grant. If my social media feeds are anything to go by, this move has been met with massive opposition. I even signed a re-instatement petition that seemed to fly past the initial target of 10,000 signatures but then nothing more was heard and it seems both Marc and Gideon are building up to the end of their shows this month.

I have nothing against their replacements, I do not even know Deb Grant and I have had a quiet respect for the way Tom Ravenscroft has effectively picked up the baton laid down by his dad and run with it without ever appearing to use his family connection to further his career. But Marc Riley has been a serious champion of so many acts that resonate with the live music attending population. Not only that but he has a depth of knowledge from the past sixty years of music that opens the door to genuinely eclectic listening across the genres and eras. Look at all the live acts I have just seen and most will have been given a push by Riley this year, either playing their new releases, announcing the tour dates, inviting them into the studio for a live session and often all three. Same goes for Gideon, the BBC has a mouth-watering archive of live recordings and sessions which, in his hands, are kept relevant and alive with the curation of a connoisseur.

Obviously, we will all adapt, the BBC shunted John Peel about in a shockingly malicious way at times but he always ploughed on honoring his musical mission drive. I am sure Marc and Gideon will do the same and of course, we can all listen to them on iPlayer at a time of our choosing, but this is still a great shame, live broadcasting is important. The two of them are modest men, Riley especially so with his aggressive avoidance of anything approaching aggrandizement. The same thing happened to him and Mark Radcliffe in the past, for a ten-year period the pair were the best thing on Radio One, but you got the sense their humble, ordinary blokes having a go demeanor was flying below the radar of middle management. It must have been, or Radcliffe would never have got away with announcements like “that was Stardust with ‘Music Sounds Better With You’… debatable” or referring to a record as being by Mary J Bilge. Sadly, though then as is now, that kind of grounded music community pleasing presenting does not ring the bells of soulless middle management types, so when they want to justify their pay packet by forcing through change it is always the likes of Marc and Gideon who pay the price. As much as I understand any radio station thinking of the future this still feels like a misstep by 6Music. I am fifty-one and think I can reasonably hope for my music interest to endure for another two or three decades to come. I have heard Radio Two at 7pm and if they think they can shunt me in that direction they are mistaken. The saying “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” never felt more apt, I hope you enjoy my May playlist…

On a previous monthly playlist post this year I wrote about my mild disappointment in a TV documentary claiming to be about a ‘great lost Nina Simone album’ which was really just a thin excuse to place Emile Sande with some of Nina’s old musicians and play a jazz gig enhanced by the Simone spirit. The actual album in question was of questionable provenance to say the least although, if you view the film for what it actually was, it was perfectly watchable. On the other end of the scale however, over the past few weeks I watched a music documentary that gave me everything I look for in this style of program. A new feature on the life of Ottilie Patterson sent me diving back into the archives to check out a lot more of the music she made in the fifties and sixties and on top of that, it brought the woman behind the voice vividly to life as lucid personal details added depth to her story.

Ottilie Patterson was a Northern Irish singer who, as a prominent vocalist in the Chris Barber Jazz Band from 1954 onwards, became a leading light within the British Jazz and Blues scenes of the period. Her kudos was down to a voice that stamped conviction and raw power (not something the Trad Jazz scene was often credited with) on the material she brought to the bands repertoire. The part Ottilie played in this is often overlooked; she had married Chris Barber in 1959 and an image as the textbook fifties housewife probably explains how people assumed the connoisseurs material revived by the group was done so solely at the behest of Barber. But Patterson was a genuine aficionado of those music roots and her knowledge, as well as her talent, assured she could hold her own with the many visiting Blues veterans who toured with the Barber band during this time.

Like it or not though, people are judged on appearance so that prim and proper fifties look dated very quickly as the swinging sixties progressed with Mod, Beat, Hippy and Psychedelic fashions crash landing year after year. Maybe that is why the name of Ottilie Patterson is still not mentioned in the same breath as an Amy Winehouse or a Janis Joplin? If there was one thing this documentary did reveal it was that her life brought as much hurt, mental health damage and depression as that experienced by other more heavily documented tortured artists. But Ottilie was born of a different era and a fast fading set of values. She was apparently deferential to her husband in ways that would be scorned today. For Ottilie, it may have been the unfulfilled hopes of a marriage for life (she was divorced from Chris Barber in 1983) and motherhood that broke her soul. It is noted by friends in the film that, even as she disappeared to live out her final two decades in relative solitude and obscurity in Scotland, she maintained the surname Barber, never to marry again.

An emotional core of the documentary comes from a lo-fidelity tape recorded interview Ottilie gave to a journalist in 1990 during which she opens up on devastating personal details of an abortion she had to go through in January 1956, then continues to offer glimpses on how the fall out from those events shadowed her for the rest of her life. It does not seek to deliberately paint Chris Barber in a bad light, criticism of him is mainly limited to an anecdote on how he could sometimes irritate Ottilie by fussing around her too much, it merely reflects how the struggles of their marriage and joint careers impacted Patterson’s world. As early as 1963 she was already beginning to step back from her Barber Band appearances due to stresses the lifestyle brought about, although she would be involved with the set up for another twenty years off and on before finally calling it a day.

Most fascinating of all, Ottilie made a solo album in 1969 released on the Marmalade label and featuring a few compositions of her own. Some of these are especially revealing as hidden in those grooves are hints to the inner turmoil’s her life and vigorously held beliefs led her to endure. It also demonstrates a voice that could enrich any style of material, what a shame she did not choose to develop this side of her art further. ‘3000 Years Of Ottilie’ is impossible to place in any category, it is a unique hybrid of folk, blues and show tune flamboyance. It is also very hard to find nowadays, you can go on Discogs and it is there but you are not going to get it for anything less that £250. Surely this one needs a re-issue? The documentary is well worth seeking out, it is called ‘My Name Is Ottilie’ and features an American musician living in Northern Ireland called Dana Masters whose investigative work does appear motivated by a genuine love of the subject. To tickle your interest further, I have headed up and closed this months playlist with the sound of Ottilie Patterson…