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YUSAN JAZZ ENSEMBLE &  Avishai Cohen Ensemble

The set by Yusan was a pulsating hour of music that didn´t sound pieced together or ´fused´ in any way. Instead it ebbed and flowed and easily accommodated all the styles and influence these incrfedible musicians have brought to this ensemble.
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ELVIS THE MOVIE IS HERE

Dee had been impressed by the actors and characters of the black female singers in Elvis: The Movie , who were new names to her other than by reading them from her studies of Aretha Franklin. She had fully enjoyed Elvis; The Movie, though, Then, more or less simultaneously, we both said, ´So often, we only know half the story, don´t we´?
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LANZAROTE FOLK SET FINE EXAMPLE

I think Cintia is right to speak of her work connecting with the´feeling of our people:¨ I would go further, though, and suggest that her works offer any tourist who can find the ´time to stand and stare´ might come to understand a little more of Lanzarote and Canary Island tradition and what life was like for previous gnerations here, before the planes brought the visitors here. Cintia´s installations speak of the dignity of the men who caught food out on an often volatile ocean, and she captures the quietude of the working men who wrote poetry too. and the competetiveness of the children who had to make their own sport and games on Lanzarote.
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I spy JOSEPHINE BAKER, a musician on a  special mission

Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon. 
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WOODY´S EDUCATION CENTRE LEGACY& Phil Ochs´ Fellowship

The Woody Guthrie prize has been awarded over the past few years to luminaries like Springsteen, Joan Baez, (left) . John Mellencamp, Kris Kristofferson, Mavis Staples and Pete Seeger. “We hope that the Woody Guthrie Prize will shed an inspirational light on those who have decided to use their talents for the common good rather than for personal gain,” says Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora. “With his dry wit, Woody always preferred to call himself a ‘commonist.’ His quote from John Steinbeck’s character, Tom Joad, says it pretty simply: ‘Wherever children are hungry and cry, wherever people ain’t free, wherever men are fightin’ for their rights, that’s where I’m gonna be.’

Rochdale And Lanzarote, similar in shape, size, and style !

The kind of joined up, grown up interactions between enterprises such as English Folk Expo (represented by Tom Besford) and  dedicated media services such as all across the arts (as represented by Steve Cook) my own sites here at Sidetracks And Detours and Lanzarote Information, Steve Bewick at Hot Biscuits and Larry Yaskiel, who so willingly shares opportunities with his readers at Lancelot, can surely deliver the strong support network that will enable artists to focus on their creativity,….to the benefit of all of us and society in general. In fact, Mr. Cooke treads heavy footprints all across the arts for the rest of us to follow. He is a prime example of how effective networking saves time, cost and energy, and a look at his current all across the arts round up in the glossy Style magazine(a newish venture, this dor Steve) will help he and and Ruth (who has taken over the editorship of the magazine from her father Colin Meredith) deliver news ever more widely. 

Sidetracks & Detours through THE PERFECT STORM

a walk on the wildside through a perfect storm from Glasgow to Manchester to South Africa to Texas and back to Lanzarote
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BITS AND PIECES FALL INTO PLACE (vol. 1)

One member in particular had a special, reason to take part in the concert, as she is constantly worrying about her family back in Ukraine.. She was sad no doubt, but very proud, that the choir was wearing blue sashes and the brilliant yellow sunflowers that symbolise Ukraine.. She is originally from the country´s Poltova region but was living in the city of Kyiv when she met her Spanish husband before he got a job here in Lanzarote, and the couple moved over here.That city they left behind is now horribly damaged, as we have seen on our tv reports. Natalia Tunik arrived on Lanzarote over ten years ago. Since the Russian invasion of her country she has been campaigning and fundraising to aid Ukraine, whilst taking poart in concerts like tonight´s over on mainland Spain as well.
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THE AYE RIGHT FESTIVAL, GLASGOW, 2022

I found Difficult Women  very easy to read, which is not something I can always claim when reading about Feminism. The book has been described in other place as witty, hilarious, rigorous, unforgettable and devastating.
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TAPES RECORDED ALONG THE TRAIL + bits & pieces; Adsubian Art Gallery, Ribble Valley Jazz & English Folk Expo

. By writing new music influenced by the roots music many of them listened, some of these musicians, Tom Russell, in particular perhaps, themselves became music-ethno-musicologists, taking music around and in so doing strengthened its flavour rather than diluted it- My memory of those times is of how Russell, Tom Paxton, Townes, Guy Clark, Bill Staines , Butch Hancock (and his Flatlander mate Jimmie and Joe) and Nanci Griffith too created new music and took it forwarded. I also remember, though, that all these artists in performance would explain to we in the audience the geographical and ethnic roots from which their own music had grown.