While Edinburgh's Ceilidh Culture festival was rousing itself into a month of folk music-based activity over the weekend, one of the seminal figures on the city's folk scene was transporting his audience back to the 1960s into the sort of packed upstairs bar space that must have felt strangely familiar to him.
Some of those present to hear Mike Heron revisit his contributions to the Incredible String Band's halcyon days were possibly there first time around.
Andrew Greig certainly was. Now a respected published poet and author, Greig prefaced readings of his vibrant, witty observations on childhood afternoons and misinterpreted encounters with his recollections on greeting the ISB backstage at the Usher Hall in 1968 and bothering their manager afterwards with tapes of his own band.
Greig's support for joy and daftness's place in society sat well with Heron's music making. This was the ISB's sometimes charmingly haphazard continuation of the jug band tradition writ large. Heron has hardly changed visually or sonically with the passing of time and his enjoyment in singing the Hedgehog Song (a rare example of this particular insectivore turning music critic), Black Jack David's rugged raggle taggle gypsy tale and the epic, twisting A Very Cellular Song was palpable.
Joined by his daughter Georgia Seddon (vocals, keyboard, percussion), John Wilson (fiddle and mandolin), Mike Hastings (guitar, strumstick, harmonica and jaw harp) and latterly Greig on banjo, he presided over a chummy session that had occasional longueurs – most notably when band members' songs were given the spotlight – but managed to create a sense of community that felt, comfortably, like distant times.
HHH
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