Davy Graham – Midnight Man (Remastered)
Bread and Wine – 12 April 2019
Topic Records, who celebrate their 80th Anniversary this year, have been written about a lot on these pages recently, understandably so when you consider the incredible number of influential artists they recorded and distributed around the folk scene, especially in the game-changing sixties decade. Davy Graham was one such artist who first appeared on Topic released vinyl in 1962, an EP recorded in collaboration with Alexis Korner who also received joint billing. Considering Korner’s status as a purist’s pioneer in Blues circles, the association probably did Davy no harm. But the thing that made people sit up and take notice was the inclusion of Davy’s instrumental composition ‘Angi’. Such was the stature of the work, a tune that today is credited with pioneering the folk guitar instrumental, that Bert Jansch had already learned a year earlier in 1961, discovering it on a borrowed cassette. This passing on would continue for ‘Angi’ (a title that would also see its spelling evolve over the years) with luminaries ranging from Simon & Garfunkel to Chumbawamba interpreting it and glitterati such as Martin Carthy and Jimmy Page citing its influence. Never a piece that could be easily mastered by anyone less than a virtuoso, ‘Angi’ ensured that from the outset of his career Davy Graham enjoyed a reputation among his peers that was formidable.
Graham would not stay with the Topic label, the most notable record deal of his whole career kicked off in 1963 when he started recording for Decca. One album with Shirley Collins, ‘Folk Roots New Routes’ and then 1965’s solo ‘Folk Blues And Beyond’ were issued in quick succession and remain the essential listening of Graham’s recorded output. They are works of a true pioneer, fusions that are folk in name and in terms of the tools they utilise, but absolutely beyond categorisation in every other sense. Their renown endures because this was Davy at his most focused as a recording artist. Also, he was picking from a lot of the juiciest low hanging fruit in his repertoire and getting that down on record. By the time he came to record this 1966 record ‘Midnight Man’, the sense that this was an artist with any kind of game plan was slowly evaporating. Davy was a musical sponge with a fierce determination not to be categorised. This was, without doubt, his greatest strength, but commercially perhaps his versatility always proved a curse.
The Bread & Wine label has lovingly re-issued two Davy Graham albums from the sixties with the kind of attention to detail both releases deserve (read the earlier review of Hat here). Packaged in card digipaks that replicate the artwork of the original record with the sleeve notes that first appeared on the back cover being reproduced on the fold out middle; a nice touch as recreating them exactly as they were on the vinyl sleeve would have rendered the text a bit too small on this smaller CD size cover. The inner booklet has a new essay by David Fricke as well as additional photos from the session that yielded the 1966 cover art. Davy is seen in a candlelit, homely environment playing his guitar to an unnamed lady tiredly stretching across the wooden table they’re sat at (after all, Davy is the midnight man, keeping his companion from submitting to the sleep that wants to engulf her). I love how albums from this period wouldn’t shy away from a literal, sometimes cheesy, illustration of the title of the record.
In the new liner notes, it is mentioned how contemporary reviews had wrongly suggested Davy was floundering a little with ‘Midnight Man’. Taking in the contemporary scene with all its sitars and eastern psychedelic vibrations, they felt the man had fallen behind somewhat; he was following where once he had led. This could not have been more wrong; on ‘Midnight Man’ Davy Graham simply carried on down the same path he had always walked. To these ears, the fusion of folk, blues, hard-bop jazz with contemporary work by the Beatles and his own fresh compositions bring to mind the progressions that were soon to be developed by Pentangle; a legitimate and weighty comparison that once again shows how Davy Graham was still very much an innovative artist in 1966. But a perverse and unpredictable one too, whose unique eloquence as a guitarist carried him into ever more uncharted musical territory. ‘Midnight Man’ may not have become one of his celebrated long players, but its music stands the test of time and that’s all that matters. Until now it has been one of his most elusive releases too, so go and check it out on this lush new re-release.