JOURNEY'S END by Huw Parsons

I WAS BLUE AND LONELY (From the CD 'Wings'): Words and Voice – Huw. Piano – Cornelia Rahdes.
This is Huw's version of a monologue, written by Sting and Andy Summers, which is part of a song by 'The Police' called 'Be My Girl.' He tells us that he's purposefully left in just a sprinkling of original words as homage to the original song.

THE VICAR'S JAGUAR (From the CD 'Wings'): Words and Voice – Huw. Violin – Jan Hurst. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
Huw is oddly reticent when it comes to saying much about 'The Vicar's Jaguar,' except he says that when it comes to the clergy fact is often stranger than fiction! Should a vicar own a limo? A simple question to which there are no doubt many answers but only one in my mind!

BOILING KETTLES - FROZEN PIPES (From the CD 'Wings'): Words and Voice – Huw. Piano – Cornelia Rahdes.
Can Huw be the only person who doesn’t like the Queen’s Christmas day speech?
‘Quite possibly treasonous, certainly seditious, I'll come visit you in the Tower of London with a Christmas pud for two!’ Sting.

YELLOW HANGDOWN (From the CD 'Wings'): Words and Voice - Huw. Violin – Jan Hurst. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
This is a descriptive work about the last public execution in England to take place at the scene of a crime. This happened in 1838 in the tiny village of Kenn, near Clevedon in Somerset.

GARDEN GATE (From the CD 'Sweet Thing'): Words and Voice – Huw. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
This poem is read by Huw with a fabulously eerie musical score written and performed by David Cooper Orton. The words are a development of something Huw once saw scrawled up on a wall.

THE EXPERIMENTAL POET (From the CD 'With Great Pleasure'): Words and Voice – Huw. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
I just love this recording because of David Cooper Orton's fantastic 'Clint Eastwood/Spaghetti Western type' soundtrack which is so inspired and well judged. The words aren't half-bad too!

HIGH TIME, HIGH TIDE: Words – Huw. Voices – Jan Hurst and Huw. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
'In the Lindisfarne Gospels is amazing art that beggars belief
When sinuous details rejoice in gold leaf -
And the water that drained Northumbrian hills
Tonight becomes these hand-painted thrills-
When it shimmies the city's bright sodium lights
Into colourful patterns of swirling delights...................'
'It's very lovely and made me glow inside with that warm feeling of home, of belonging; that inexplicable and strange magic of the black, filthy river that spawned me. Thank you for your poem, for Jan's exquisite voice and the musical references from David which are well appreciated.
Love, Sting.'

CONFUSED THE HOURS (From the CD ‘Sisters’): Words and Voice – Huw. Piano – Cornelia Rahdes.
This is in essence, despite its black humour, a sad poem about Huw's mother who, very sadly, suffered from dementia towards the end of her life. Some people find this poem disturbing because of the way that Huw uses tones of mockery for comic effect, but what I feel he's really doing is telling us just as it was and using humour to conceal painful feelings about his mum!

THE BLACKEST BLUES: Words and Voice - Huw. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
'In the vicarage every morning I wake up with the blues,
Blacker than new bibles set out neatly in the pews.....'
Just ace – as is David's musical accompaniment based on the old Leadbelly song, 'In the Pines.' I love it!

UP TO THE NORTH: Words and Voice - Huw. Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
A beautiful poem that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt the urge to run off and start a new life somewhere else. This is Huw and David at their very best. Fab!

PISCES (From the CD ‘Music of the Universe’): Piano – Cornelia Rahdes.
Cornelia plays a lovely solo piano piece here. It reminds me of a Scottish folk song, one that I half remember from long ago.

ALL ADDS UP: Guitar – David Cooper Orton.
Here's a solo piece from David, a hugely gifted and inspired musician. More please!


JOURNEY’S END: Words - Anon. Voice – Huw.
And finally, here's a little piece of verse that Huw has framed on his study wall.

Janice Miller, writer and critic, January 2015

Huw Parsons was born in1954 in Llyswen, a village ten miles west of Hay-on-Wye. He was educated at Brecon Boys’ Grammar School and Chelsea College of Art. He’s worked as a painter, film-maker, watch repairer and photographer. His influences include nursery rhymes, the poems of John Betjeman and the song lyrics of Jake Thackray and Sting. This is first time that he has attempted to write song lyrics, as on the track ‘The Blackest Blues.’ Huw now lives in the village of Clyro on the English /Welsh border.

Jan Hurst was born in Northumberland in 1966. She grew up in Newcastle upon- Tyne and went to a local school at West Denton where she first showed musical ability by playing trumpet and violin in the school orchestra and string quartets. When Jan left school she joined the army. Since then Jan has worked as a guest-house owner, in a school and as a homoeopath. Her musical influences are diverse ranging from 'Led Zeppelin' to 'Lindisfarne.' Jan now plays in a folk/oblique bluegrass band in Brecon where she now lives.

Cornelia Rahdes was born in Schleswig, North Germany, in 1956. She started playing the piano at the age of two, sat at the keyboard on her uncle's knee. Cornelia was fascinated by music, finding in it a means of expression, even at the age of three. Her parents were very unrestricted, so she has no problems improvising today. Cornelia studied music and German literature at Bremen University. She has broad musical taste ranging from Bach to 'The Who.' She now works as a psychotherapist and piano teacher in Powys and also is Musical Director of Talgarth Community Choir.

David Cooper Orton was born into a musical family from north-west Kent in 1955. As a child he played cornet and flugelhorn in a brass band; but by the age of fourteen, he was guitarist in "Pseadalor", a band formed at school. Initially inspired by the Beatles and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, he survived a headlong rush through blues, "prog", fusion, punk, and jazz. Now living in Penarth, David's main musical focus is ambient guitar and "live-looping", both of which display influences ranging from jazz guitarists Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell; minimalist composer Steve Reich; Brian Eno; and African music.

Huw Parsons was born in 1954, grew up in Llyswen, near Hay on Wye, and educated at Brecon Boys’ Grammar School and Chelsea College of Art.

He feels neither wholly English nor particularly Welsh, with his life’s diversity a social impostor and a cultural chameleon.

His influences: the poems of John Betjeman & Phillip Larkin, the novels of Leslie Thomas, the song lyrics of Sting & Jake Thackray.

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