This month, James Varda‘s 2014 album Chance and Time will be reissued for the first time on vinyl. The label responsible for this lovely deed is Unspun Heroes, whose mission is to find and highlight music deserving of wider attention. They then reissue these albums on vinyl in small batches. Chance and Time will be limited to 300 pressings and can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp here (out on 15th March).
James’s friend, the award-winning author Nick Triplow, has written extensive new liner notes. Personal thoughts from James’s wife, son, and brother have also been written especially for this release. A lot of thought and preparation has clearly gone into this release; it’s a beautiful tribute.
James Varda’s Chance and Time is rightly considered his best. It’s hard to believe that While it easily warrants this treatment, we have Unspun Heroes to thank for choosing it and putting it out in this beautiful format. Unfortunately, this was James’ last album. He lost his battle with cancer in 2015. As Mike Davies said in his 2014 album review here, it’s one to cherish. As Unspin say, his website says it best, describing this album as one that “chronicled the experience of confronting illness and death. In doing so, he created a unique language and music of love and pain, family, landscape and loss.”
“I would regard myself as an outsider as far as the music industry goes because I have nothing to do with it. Occasionally I release a record on my own label and that’s it. I don’t play live…If anybody gets to hear my music it’s a bit of a miracle.” James Varda Interview with KLOF Mag
It started with a Mixtape
When I first spoke to James, he recalled his musical epiphany began with a mixtape. “I played the guitar from a fairly early age and had written a few things. I went to university to study psychology, and while I was there, my roommate made a Dylan tape for me. That changed everything. Songs like It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) hit me so hard. That you could do that with just a voice and a guitar. Writing songs became all-consuming, so when I finished my degree, I went back to London to see what I could do.”
Influences
“I had so many influences but the most important ones were Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Hank Williams, R.E.M, John Lee Hooker, Patti Smith, Television, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Ginsberg.“
Jane Kenyon (Poet)
Many consider Jane Kenyon one of America’s best contemporary poets. James: “I think the combination of writing about the small details of her life at Eagle Pond Farm and the natural world where she lived, together with her sense of the suffering that living entails. She wrote with great clarity and honesty. And she wrote gardening articles for the local newspaper. It’s that sense of place again.”
Robert Adams (Photographer)
James on Robert Adams: “He’s a landscape photographer who has chosen to photograph landscapes in a small number of locations in America that matter to him. He hasn’t gone looking for epic sights. His work has a deep environmental ethos and he has photographed forest degradation for example, he hasn’t shied away from it. And like most visual artists, he’s fascinated by how light transforms a scene, whether that is a small bowl of nasturtiums on his kitchen table or a Colorado street.” The description could easily be transposed onto James’ music.
Beginnings: Spotted by Roy Harper
An all-consuming passion needs space to grow, and James knew those songs needed to be heard to take him to the next level. “I was writing songs, but I wasn’t performing them,” he explains, but it wasn’t long before such an opportunity did arise. “One of the other people in the house I lived in at the time used to go to folk clubs to play, so I went along. It was as simple as that. Anyone could play a floor spot, so that’s how I started. I had a small group of friends who believed in what I was doing and were very supportive.”
In 1987, James Varda came to the attention of the folk singer and guitarist Roy Harper while performing at Clapham Folk Club. Roy later passed on a tape to Andy Ware of Murmur Records, whom he then signed with. He recorded his debut album Hunger at Roy’s studio in Lincolnshire, which was released in ‘88. The release received great reviews, leading to TV appearances on Night Network (LWT–see video below), MTV, and numerous radio appearances.
Reflecting on his debut, an album some had described as bleak, he shared, “If there is a bleak view on Hunger, it comes from being young and looking at the world and perceiving it flawed. But those flaws have always been with us, and I imagine always will be.” He adds, “We are humans after all. I’m more interested now in finding the good in the world and appreciating what has been achieved over the centuries in creating the country we live in.“
Despite what sounded like a promising start, James gave his final live performance in 1990 before disappearing for several years. He wouldn’t reappear on the music scene again until 2004 with his album In the Valley.
Moving to Suffolk/In the Valley/The Rivers and Stars
James, on leaving the music scene: “As with most things, there were probably a number of factors at work, but more than anything, I just didn’t enjoy the life that went with being a performer. As Townes Van Zandt said, being a folk singer is 10% playing and 90% driving. I’m not a great traveller and I was often pretty ambivalent about performing. I was married with two young sons by this point and I got to a stage where I needed to move on with my life and I couldn’t see how I could do that and carry on performing. Writing was always the main motivation for me, not performing.”
In the mid-90s, James moved to Suffolk, “East Anglia has always attracted me. I think it is the big skies. So when I got a chance to move there, I took it…we all have to find a way to live in the world. I moved to Suffolk with my wife Angela and our two sons, and so my concerns were quite different. I needed to find a different way to write to reflect that. I’m a slow worker; it took me a while.”
Suffolk and the natural world influenced his music, as you can hear on his 2004 album In the Valley. “When I moved to Suffolk, I lived in East Bergholt in the Stour Valley. It’s a very special part of Suffolk…The natural world is very important to me and that connection has influenced my writing a great deal.” He adds, “Certainly, moving to Suffolk allowed me to live a different sort of life, but even as a child growing up in suburban London, I was drawn to woods and parks where I lived.”
“Not long after In The Valley was released (2004) I was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Some of that experience found its way into The River And The Stars. Before The River And The Stars was released in 2013 I found out that the cancer was still with me. Fliss (Jones) and Bugs who were working with me on that album, felt that we should just carry on working together and make another album. It was a very special and productive time in terms of songwriting and recording.”
Chance and Time (2014)
“The key people on the album (Chance and Time) are Fliss Jones who plays harp, accordion and piano and Bugs who plays drums but also engineered and co-produced the album.” He adds, “Fliss has a wonderful sense of what my songs need. She plays those parts and nothing more. The piano part on Beside The Sea is a great example of that economy of expression. And Bugs is always totally committed to getting things right however long it takes. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with them. I think there was a collective sense of what we might be able to achieve together and we didn’t let go of anything until we were all happy with what we had done.”
“Also on the album are Mick Hutton, a very fine jazz bassist who also played on The River And The Stars and Johanna Herron who was a real find on backing vocals. And Nick Harper who first played with me on Hunger plays on one song. Nick is such a remarkable guitar player, it was great to connect up with him again.”
At the end of my interview, I asked James whether he had planned to release more music.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think so, but in the context, perhaps Chance And Time is an appropriate ending. People who know my work seem to regard it as the best album I’ve made, and I would agree with that.
“Perhaps with a bit of luck a few more people might become aware of my work from this album.”
Pre-Order Chance and Time here (15th March): https://unspunheroes.bandcamp.com/album/chance-and-time