On the eve of a Q&A appearance at Moseley Folk Festival 2022, we catch up with Vashti Bunyan to discuss her memoir, Wayward, and how her April London concert may be her last…
Over 20 years since she returned to music, 1960s singer/songwriter Vashti Bunyan has started another chapter in her remarkable life – this time as an author.
“I found that it came really easily in the end,” she says of her recently published autobiography, Wayward: Just Another Life To Live, which sees the songwriter reclaiming the near-mythical story of her journey from London to the Outer Hebrides in the run-up to the release of her flop debut album, 1970’s Just Another Diamond Day.
It’s a story that first emerged during the early-00s when Vashti suddenly found herself championed by a new generation of folk-inclined musicians, wowed by the gentleness of her Joe Boyd-produced LP. For many, it came to symbolise the ultimate hippy adventure, as the young Vashti and partner Robert Lewis headed northwards by wagon and horse on an 18-month adventure to visit a hippy colony in Skye and acid folk-pop star Donovan (interviewed here). Leaving in 1968 with a guitar (and a dog) for company, she penned her charming songs en route.
But widely published idyllic and romantic readings, peppered with fictitious embellishments, have long niggled Vashti. Her aim with Wayward was to set the record straight, to present the reality of the trip, from the desire for change, to the mud.
Despite it being over 50 years since her trek, details have remained fresh to the author.
“It was easy to remember – I have really clear memories of it,” she says of starting to write Wayward. “What was more difficult was how to portray those memories, how to talk about the other people.
“It wasn’t difficult looking back in any way,” she continues, “it wasn’t painful because it’s all still very much there. But choosing what to leave in, what to take out, and who not to hurt – that was a difficult thing.
“But I did enjoy revisiting.”
Writing the book (now out in hardback), gave the now 70-something musician a chance to reconnect with a number of people from that period in her life.
“It’s been wonderful. I made a point of having the book sent to anyone who was mentioned in the book, and so it’s been lovely to have their responses. Everyone was okay with it,” she says – although a couple of things may be amended for a reprint. “But loosely it’s been a very lovely response to the way I’ve written it, and all that I’ve left out – some people might be grateful.”
From a childhood love of music, the teenage Vashti found herself being readied to become the next Marianne Faithful, guided by Andrew Loog Oldham. The Rolling Stones’ producer and manager ensured her 1965 debut single, Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, was a cut of a track written by Jagger and Richards.
But neither that seven-inch nor its follow-up failed to make an impression. And the same was said for the Joe Boyd-produced Just Another Diamond Day – which appeared in 1970 and employed the talents of Fairport Convention’s Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick, The Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson, and Nick Drake arranger Robert Kirby.
Feeling disenchanted with the music industry and with a newborn child, Vashti simply moved on. She looked set to be another forgotten ’60s songster until crate diggers rediscovered Just Another Diamond Day in the late-90s prompting a 2000 release. Eventually, she picked up her guitar again and released two well-received albums of new material (Lookaftering and Heartleap) along with a string of fascinating collaborations and guest spots (Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective, Mercury Rev, Vetiver etc).
At the time of her rediscovery, music had been so far from Vashti’s mind that she didn’t even own a copy of the album.
“No. I only had a copy of the first single. I’d left it on a window sill and it all curled up, around the edges. I’ve got it on my wall, all curled up. But Diamond Day, I had no copy – I gave them all away when it first came it, I didn’t keep one,” she says, although she adds that others retained their copies, and she does now have an original copy in her possession.
“I was visiting my sister a couple of years ago; she lives in New York – where she’s lived all my adult life. She came into the room with something behind her back, and she said, ‘I thought you might like to have this old thing.’ And miraculously, it was a copy I’d sent her back in 1970, and what was so lovely about it was that it was well played, it was all scratched up, the cover was a little bit faded and torn – so she had loved it.
“I never knew” Her kids had played it, and that was lovely to me; she had an original copy; it was very special, very special.”
Launching the spring publication of Wayward in hardback, Vashti made a live appearance at London’s Barbican in April 2022.
“Oh it was absolutely brilliant in the end. But it was so difficult, what with Covid and everything. We didn’t get the lineup absolutely together to rehearse until the day before the show: because people were dropping out with Covid; because of other illness; because of other circumstances. The keyboard player got Covid four days before the show so the Musical Director, Fiona Brice, who was s’posed to be playing violin – she had to play keyboards and get a friend in to play violin. It was so nerve-wracking, but actually everyone was so …” she tails off before jumping back in.
“Oh! They’re professional musicians, so they could play whatever you put in front of them and play it with heart and soul. The audience were so great – I kept dropping my capo, forgetting the words… What’s next?” she laughs. “But the audience were just so kind and great, such a lovely response.
“It was just great and I’ll never forget it, and probably, it could be the last live show I do – I don’t know.”
Conscious that she may not be able to play the guitar forever, Vashti likes the idea of stepping down from touring and major solo shows by leaving at a high-point.
“I’d quite like it to have been the last one; it was so great, so good, so heart-warming for me, nothing could ever match it, I don’t think. But Gareth Dickson, the guitarist – we’ve played together for 16 years now, which is incredible – we might do something else together, but he’s taking off in his own way – he always has been, but even more now.
“I don’t know, [but] I think we might do some more recording together – I’d really like that, if I ever get around to writing another song, we might do that. I love recording.”
So, for the time being, at least, if you want to see Vashti live, it’s at events like Birmingham’s Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, where she’ll be reading from her memoir and chatting to writer Jude Rogers about her life – something she’s increasingly enjoying.
“Doing these book readings is great,” she says. “You get to travel without getting on a plane with a guitar, without carrying a guitar around airports or stations or trains, wherever – now I only have to take a book!”
Vashti Bunyan visits Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, Birmingham, on Sunday, 4 September 2022.
There are several Folk Radio UK favourites playing at the festival, including Alasdair Roberts, Yasmin Williams, The Weather Station, Martin Carthy, John Francis Flynn, Lady Nade, The Brothers Gillespie, Katie Spencer, Anais Mitchell, Talisk,
…as well as Supergrass, Kurt Vile, Martin Stephenson, Seasick Steve, Billie Martin, The Longest Johns and Jethro Tull.
The full lineup and details can be found here: www.moseleyfolk.co.uk