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RALPH McTELL
Summer Lightning
Pub. Amber Waves
ISBN 1 902684 03 6
Volume two of McTell's autobiography resumes where volume one (Angel Laughter) left off - in 1960, with the fifteen-year-old Ralph gratefully shaking the dust of the army's Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion from his shoes. It follows him back home in Croydon through Tech and art college, where academic studies stood little chance against the discovery of jazz, blues and girls and the acquisition of a coveted Harmony Sovereign guitar; to the coffee house and beat scene of early '60s Brighton and a hitching tour to Greece fuelled by the spirit of Woody Guthrie and accompanied by guitar, excitement and debilitating nerves; through a spell living on fresh air and friendships in Dorset and touring Europe with his first love until, after a series of jobs in southern England department stores and building sites, he finds a new musical confidence and his wife-to-be in the cold, Bohemian streets of Paris five and a half years later.
Though references are made to heroes Dylan, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller et al, and contempories such as Martin Carthy, Wizz Jones, Bert Jansch and Jacqui McShee, this isn't a spotlight on the folk revival: all that was yet to come. Music is the raison d'être which underpins the whole narrative, the guitar is an ever-present obsession, but it's the vividly-recalled detail of characters and events in a fascinating era of burgeoning post-war youthful freedom which make this book such a good read. The eloquence and imagery of McTell's songwriting flows through the pages; an easy, conversational style loaded with dialogue brings the years to life.
These memoirs come to a close in 1966, on the brink of a recording career which was to bring Ralph McTell millions of fans worldwide and a timeless body of work. Those familiar with the man's lyrics will find familiar seeds in the episodes recounted here with love, honesty, wit and humility.
Mel McClellan - April 2003
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Folk & Acoustic
