Bright Phoebus - Lal & Mike Waterson

a search turned up a few posts that mention it, but no threads, so i thought i'd make one. bright phoebus is a deeply weird and deeply beautiful early 70s folk-rock album which apparently influenced a lot of great musicians (including richard dawson, one of my faves - i found this album through him!)

in short - lal and mike are best known as members of the watersons, one of the biggest acts to come out of the british trad-folk revival in the sixties. weary of touring, the family stopped making music as a group in 1968, but lal and mike stayed in close contact and began to share songs they'd written with each other as well as writing some together. the album was recorded and released in 1972 and featured, among others, their sister norma as well as martin carthy and richard thompson. it was, go figure, mostly not well-received on release and languished in relative obscurity for decades except for a few, apparently quite badly made, rereleases.

it was rereleased again by domino in 2017, and apparently this version generated a bit of fanfare and was really well-mastered, but there was some kind of legal dispute between domino and the company who owns the rights to the album - domino lost, so copies stopped being made and now they're rare and
expensive.

if anyone has a digital copy of the album they'd be willing to share, that would be extremely cool. all i've heard is the low-quality uploads on youtube, and the thought of those one day being taken down haunts me.

if not, I just found a (relatively) inexpensive copy of the domino release on ebay which comes with a download link - i'd be happy to share it here if i end up getting it.

here's my favourite song from the album. absolutely transcendent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut9MhLq-tVs

I have a nasty feeling that it slipped my mind to look in FOPP for the reissue before it was withdrawn. & I think I'd gone into town with that high on my must buy list that day.
I do have the earlier cdr reissue somewhere though. It does have some good stuff on.
Also think I neglected to pick up a Waterstones family box set when I was first in this town. Which is more traditional fare but would have been good to have.

Got it on vinyl, it was impossible to find for years.

Cover version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXUozOmpnXg

Think somebody had said later that they found copies in the Fopp I'd been in around the time. Which is why I was regretting missing it.

I got the deluxe Domino CD re-release before it was withdrawn, with the second disc of 1971 demos... send me a PM

Downloaded this from a blog onto my old i-pod many years ago, since lost. Some very unsettling songs - Scarecrow, Winifer Odd etc. Lal's voice reminds me of Nico, Poly Styrene, Raincoats. And Danny Rose could be a Morrissey track from the mid-90s.

sent you a pm with my email address, hazel - thanks a ton!

no worries tremolo! I came to this album via James Yorkston's cover of Midnight Feast back in 2008... that led me to the Lal Waterson and Oliver Knight albums from the 90s, which are unlike anything I've ever heard before. Like tin scraping bone. So I bought the Domino reissue right away!

STUNNING record.

been bumpin the album this morning - thanks again to f. hazel for the link. i'm no audiophile but i'm certain i can hear a difference between this and the youtube rips - even listening on mono it's much easier to pick out those beautiful interweaving carthy/thompson guitars.

i'm pleased to report that what i once thought were duds - "shady lady", "to make you stay", "red wine and promises" - are anything but.

this album really is good all the way through - there's a beautiful mirror world somewhere out there where it got the recognition it deserved and the watersons and co were justly rewarded for their genius.

also i just realised i posted the wrong video in my initial thread. "the scarecrow" is my SECOND favourite.

this is my fave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPk9QWhWQc

Fine Horseman + Scarecrow for me.

there's a poster here called vexingvexillologist who's recommended me this before but yeah its absence from streaming has been a barrier. SOON

Red Wine is one of the standouts, alongside those last 3 mentioned

i've said before how Hull this record is which draws me all the more i guess

there's a poster here called vexingvexillologist who's recommended me this before but yeah its absence from streaming has been a barrier. SOON

― imago, Friday, 25 August 2023 09:11 (four minutes ago)

i've hated having to endure ads and being stuck to the youtube app every time i wanted to listen to one of my favourite ads. i'm happy to link you to the files hazel shared with me if you want a better way to access it!

Red Wine is one of the standouts, alongside those last 3 mentioned

i've said before how Hull this record is which draws me all the more i guess

― my full length poll (Noodle Vague), Friday, 25 August 2023 09:12 (three minutes ago)

i'd love to know what you mean by that - i've never been to hull, though i think i've read it was a bit of a mecca for the folk scene in the 60s.

i love their accents. i used to live in manchester and had a lot of friends from all over the north, but i never met anyone who spoke like the watersons. not sure if that's just chance, if it's a specific north yorkshire accent i've never heard, or if it's died out.

there's a couple of interesting features i haven't seen in other northern dialects - the insertion of an "n" sound into words like "love", "bag" and "rag", and the rhotic R sound that crops up here and there (as in "riding over the moors"). maybe this doesn't come up in their speaking voices but i kind of doubt it given how frowned upon it was at the time for folk singers not to sing in their natural dialects

favourite albums*, not ads. goddamn it

there's a lot of inflections in Lal's voice especially that sound very Hull to me, and "Red Wine" foregrounds them. it's like listening to people i've sat in pubs with for years as we unravel. there are little hidden specifics throughout the album - the "blue and gold" that the jolly dons are wearing in "The Scarecrow" are the old colours of Hull University when that used to be a thing. "Winifer Odd" amongst others calls up an isolated weirdos vibe that's always been a soi disant thing here

Hull accent is pretty unique I think. Or was, don't know if it still is.

xpost that's really cool. i've always wondered what they were thinking when they wrote the scarecrow - what could the sacrifice of an infant by 12 university dons signify?

definitely get the isolated weirdo vibe in "winifer odd" - i live in reading at the moment, which is full of isolated weirdos (self included)

also, sorry to correct you, but it's actually norma singing on "red wine"! accompanied by her soon-to-be husband martin, which is very cute.

obviously they were sisters, so it makes sense they'd have the same inflections

would be up for an ilxmail fileshare IF THAT'S OKAY TY

the "blue and gold" that the jolly dons are wearing in "The Scarecrow" are the old colours of Hull University when that used to be a thing

I hadn't clocked on to this, I'd assumed it was a deliberate obscurity (with a side order of blue and gold being the colour of the sky on a fine spring day) - thanks.

I've been rinsing this record again recently, it really is an amazing record.

xp in the demo version the dons tie "a man new born" to the stake, interestingly; this bit I took as suggesting another piece of deliberately obscure ritual rather than sacrifice necessarily, but I'm all ears if someone knows something more specific. Wouldn't really be expecting dons in their university colours wandering around sowing corn either, afaik.

i have known it's Norma singing "Red Wine" and then i forgot, but yeah accents are more or less the same. there's more than one Hull accent but maybe less so back in the 60s/70s - it's definitely distinct from other Yorkshire accents

i wouldn't wanna pin down some exact explanation of "The Scarecrow" even if i could but the feeling i get from the dons is that they're like village elders/wise folk within the song - 12 is almost a coven, right? - and the fact that they're dons makes me think there's an unwisdom/dilettantism/hubris in their part in the rituals, they're also like morris dancers, something clownish and hidden sinister. i'm just about old enough to remember the last vestiges of when the University would have its parade thru the town as a bonding/annoyance ritual, some connection between those very different cultures when town/gown was a more distinct difference

also Hull is a city distinctly surrounded by the rural - the boundary just stops and then you're out in the estuary and the marshes and the wyrd. Larkin looks at that sometimes too

please note this is all rambling thoughts not wisdom :D :D

i'm just about old enough to remember the last vestiges of when the University would have its parade thru the town as a bonding/annoyance ritual

absolutely lobbing corn around like nobody's business, I imagine

I recall a small venue in Hull in the late 80a. Was it the Astoria. I think I must be shrinking itssize somewhat in my memory but do remember going to a couple of gigs there. Also remember pain of hitching out of the town.

Struck me that half of Throbbing Gristle came from there. Not sure who else. Housemartins?

Should have grabbed that Watersons box set I think. Probably a bit between places at the time though.

allowed you access, imago!

why thankee

The Astoria yes, it was just a house in a row of similar houses iirc.

Cosey was from Hull, Gen was only studying there but that's where it all started.

Also, the Spiders From Mars were not from Mars at all, they were from Hull!

(xps)

The Red Guitars! And Everything but the Girl, kinda.

Dead Fingers Talk!

The Avons?

I've got the vinyl reissue of this, didn't know the CD version had demos. A beautiful album.

I looked at discogs and the reissues have never had a copy sold?

If we're slinging these files around, I would love a copy of the demos. I don't know how the messaging/ilx email works here, but my personal email is: flaming rev @ hot mail . com .

I've tried playing this for people and I get an instant NO lol

hey cow - sent you the link <3

if anyone else wants the link, just let me know! i'm working from home today and ilm is just about the only thing keeping me from cracking

There were legal disputes about the ownership and rights to reissue the record, which led to the excellent Domino release being withdrawn (and as such Discogs won't allow its sale) - there's a bit about it here: https://thequietus.com/articles/32383-the-watersons-frost-and-fire-review

Thanks Tremolo!

Have the Watersons recorded other stuff like this, or is Bright Phoebius an outlier?

Oh wow. Reading a little, I had no idea these guys were a big deal in the UK. I kinda assumed they were obscure wackos in the woods or something.

it's an outlier yeah but every waterson release is at a minimum good to great imo

the venue you're thinking of would be the Adelphi Stevo, it's a former working man's club from a converted terraced house, it's still there
,

Adelphi, sorry that was it.

So happy to see a thread on this! I adore the Watersons, nearly everything they've put out - the original lineup, Waterson:Carthy (Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man is in my top 10 albums ever), their solo records - ranges from good to stunning. This record is my favourite, though (fave from them and my joint fave of all time). It's as bleak and alien as the Yorkshire countryside, and so sinister and entrancing lyrically (I've spent goodness knows how long poring over the lyrics). Such a shame it's locked up in copyright purgatory now (that's a whole story itself, many other great folk albums are trapped by that label too). As others have said here, the closest thing to this is the pair of albums Lal made with her son Oliver Knight in the 90s, it's not quite the same as this (hard to beat Martin Carthy and Richard Thompson as your backing band) but the Lal songwriting magic is still there. And imago, good to see you have the files now! Hope you (and others here) enjoy, even if you don't like it it's like unlike anything else out there. Sorry for long + incoherent post, I just really like this album 😅

this is sounding lovely!!

as well as the other things recommended, i want to rep the posthumous album of Lal Waterson home demos called Teach Me to Be a Summer's Morning.

there's a few versions of Bright Phoebus songs - including Red Wine and Promises with Lal singing instead of Norma - but it's mainly new material.

i've been reduced to tears a few times with a few of these songs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMHv5nd98E

the Norma/Martin cover is totally different but can have the same effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es8NI8hHRaA

cool to see a thread on this album, which i only heard for the first time a couple of weeks ago and have been obsessed with since. been unsettling my partner by randomly bursting into the chorus of scarecrow around the house. and 'never be the same' a perfect song about the luddites being right!

it's bad form to praise one album by bashing another but fuck it, this is the good to isb's pure hellish evil

richard dawson being a fan makes sense, was put on to it myself by a recommendation from the only better contemporary folk songwriter: nigel blackwell

omg, that makes so much sense

blackwell at his most contemplative and elegiac is absolutely in this album's line

(xps) except you are literally the only person I've ever encountered who thinks that way about ISB!

all my RYM pals love them too lol. maybe I'll try again one day

It's not that you don't like them it's that you seem to find them sinister in some way!

i cannot explain the bad vibe i got from them, it was irrational maybe but it felt like i was being led to hell by bad men, for their own amusement. the only album that's given me a similar vibe was whole lotta red by playboi carti lol

the watersons otoh are taking you on a brisk stroll across the hills with a pint at the end

have you ever listened to comus imago?

Sinister isn't the right word but there is something profoundly other and uncanny about the ISB.

the scientology connection has put me off delving into later ISB stuff and definitely gives off vibes of evil

re: comus, big fan of theirs yes, the bad vibe there is ancient and mysterious and transportative, the problem with ISB imo is that they're not going for a bad vibe, they're trying to be playful and eccentric but it feels like this is ruse to lure you in. comus create something dark, vast and ancient by design, there is no misinformation (and hearing about what ISB actually did in terms of being a literal cult, especially to their female members, doesn't help)

Er, what did they do to their female members?

didn't they basically coop them up in a weird cult commune? may be misremembering. sorry for going so off topic too

No, that never happened. What they did do was include their girlfriends in the band, encouraging them to play, sing and write material. Much to the dismay and disapproval of many of their supporters, I might add. The "commune", actually a row of workers cottages in the Scottish borders, seems to have been pretty idyllic tbh, Mike Heron still lives there. There's no excuse for the Scientology but they still made some good music!

perhaps i have been uncharitable

glad you're all digging the album. devvvine - completely agree about the richard dawson connection. i actually discovered bright phoebus thanks to a cover richard did of "the brisk lad" by mike -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N1LUyUg1ks

i hear so much of this album in richard's work, especially up to and including peasant. i especially hear "fine horseman" and "winifer odd" in his work - there's something so haunting and surreal about the imagery and the odd chords.

ISB has never really done it for me, and I have yet to check out comus or nigel blackwell - any recs to start me off?

i didn't know the brisk lad was a cover! absolutely makes sense as a connection tho

first utterance is the only comus anyone really pays much attention to, essential album

where to start with good old nige. hmm. csi ambleside?

maybe just the latest one (the voltarol years), it's one of their absolute best, work your way back from there idk

First Utterancehas been augmented with a separate e.p and at least one bonus track since the Sanctuary 2cd came out however long ago that is.
I think the same material was on more recent cd versions at least. That extra material is pretty good. I haven't played teh 74 lp much.

ISB did become scientologists at the turn of teh 70s. I think they later regretted it.

Rose Simpson has a good memoir out. I need to finish it. I think she is painting a not very rosy picture of living in primitive conditions without electri9city etc at the point i got to. THink I just picked something else up so always meant to return to it.
Wish there was a continuation of Mike Heron's memoir too it cuts ff when teh band dissolves from being a 3 piece and tehy go off to travel and doesn't get into the better known 2 or 4 piece band.

They first tried to live in North Wales and apparently that was pretty grim but then they found - or were offered - the row of cottages in Innerleithen and that was a considerable improvement! ISB that is.

Woke up with Shady Lady in my head just now. This is how it starts then

THE SUN
IS SHINING
SUN
SHINE

Love Shady Lady,putting the Watersons' usual harmonies in a regular folk-rock song totally overloads it

can't get over how brilliant this is

IT'S THE BEST DAMN BAND IN THE LAND

Great fucking record.