The Michelle Shocked Story

This week, a photograph came to light from the Glastonbury Pyramid Stage, June 1987, that I had never seen before. In many ways, it randomly and definitively captures one of the highlights of my life.

This week, the Kerrville Folk Festival is in full swing. It's a unique and homespun sort of event that runs over three weeks at the same time each year in the hills of East Texas. It features many local Texan musicians, sessions and jams around the campfires, and a main stage showcasing some of the biggest names in country and folk music. At least, that's what it offered when I first went there, 40 years ago this week, after a fortuitous tip-off from my friend, the maverick singer-songwriter Terry Allen.

Some of you know this story, but it's always a good one to repeat.

I was on my first visit to the USA and in the process of setting up my first project, the Cooking Vinyl record label. My friend Martin had just joined me, and we'd named it the night before I left the UK.

The events at Kerrville 40 years ago were life-changing. After a marathon Greyhound bus journey of around 36 hours, I arrived bleary-eyed in the Texas Hill Country after hitching the final leg of my journey from North Carolina.

A small, cosy festival was in swing. During the midweek period, when the main stage was closed, there remained a nucleus of revellers around the campfires, where musicians and storytellers gathered to exchange songs and tales. There was also a daily open mic on a hillside called The Ballad Tree.

That's where I first heard the songs of Michelle Shocked. She had not really performed before, other than with friends and on her travels. She looked different from everyone else there: leather jacket, cropped hair, ripped jeans and pumps. She was clearly something of a hobo, and talked of having recently returned from Amsterdam.

Her songs knocked me sideways — poignant and full of wordplay, tapping deep into the spirit of Americana. She totally understood the soul of American traditional music, and instinctively knew how to articulate it in the finest storytelling tradition.

After a couple more chance sightings of her playing and singing around the campfires, I knew I had to approach her and ask if she'd sing a couple of songs for the travelogue tape I was cobbling together. She immediately agreed, and we set off to find a quiet corner of the campgrounds.

We found the dying embers of a campfire. I placed my Sony Corder — a pre-Walkman, clunky secretarial cast-off I'd been handed courtesy of my flatmate Dave Roberts' father — on a log, and pressed record.

She played the first two songs while I lay in a hammock, and then she simply carried on. A whole private concert unfolded for just me and the cicadas, who were almost as loud as Michelle.

After this magical session, I tucked away the cassette, thanked her, exchanged contact details, and the next day I was on my way home via Austin and then a Louisiana Cajun festival in Mamou.

A session on Radio One

Shortly after arriving home, I was booked to DJ in Portnahaven on the Isle of Islay with my good friend Andy Kershaw. The next morning over breakfast, Andy turned to me and asked if I wanted to play anything while we ate our eggs with our hosts, Stuart and Celia.

I suddenly remembered the cassette, still in the pocket of my rucksack, and put it on.

After just a couple of songs, Andy was clearly moved by the unique qualities of what we were hearing. It was a revelation for me too, hearing it back. Andy then announced that he wanted to play it on his Radio One show as a session.

The idea excited me, so I went into Topic Studios on my return to North London and edited it into four tracks, after first tracking Michelle down to a squat on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to get her permission.

The field-recorded four-track session was broadcast on Andy's show a couple of months later, and the response was so overwhelming that Andy called me during the programme to tell me, delightedly, that the BBC phone lines had gone into overdrive with people ringing in to find out where they could get hold of the music.

It was obvious that we needed to make it available.

The Texas Campfire Tapes

So, in November, Cooking Vinyl released The Texas Campfire Tapes, with one of my two photographs on the cover.

The album took off in a totally unexpected way. A chance meeting with the esteemed journalist Fred Dellar earned us a very positive NME review to get us started, then Charlie Gillett on Capital and even Woman's Hour. Then I managed to secure Michelle a live slot on The Tube television programme in January.

From there, it went stratospheric, topping the Independent Album Chart the following week and dominating those charts throughout the year.

She came over in January and spent the next two years touring and supporting the album, playing gigs all over Europe. The first was courtesy of my friend, promoter David Jones, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, supporting acclaimed folk duo Clive Gregson and Christine Collister.

Glastonbury, 21 June 1987

Glastonbury, June 21st 1987, was probably one of the proudest moments of my life, and this photograph beautifully captures my happiness at seeing what had unfolded over the course of just one year. I'm especially pleased that both Andy and Martin are clearly recognisable in the shot too.

Michelle stole the show in front of perhaps 50,000 people during the Sunday lunchtime slot. NME's Terry Staunton called her set the highlight of the weekend.

It was while browsing Andy's Facebook page that I discovered a painted version of the photograph by James Parkinson, aka Giacomino Parkinson, whose work has appeared in Glastonbury: The Complete History of the Festival. I got in touch, and he kindly sent me the original image — I'd like to thank him for giving me permission to reproduce it.

The full story will be in the book when it finally surfaces (hopefully next year), but this shortened version of how I met Michelle feels even more poignant in the light of Andy Kershaw's death, and the recognition that he played such a key part in both Cooking Vinyl's and Michelle's early success.

Thank you, Andy. Rest in peace.

I've also recently rekindled my friendship with Christine Collister, who has just recorded some wonderful vocals for my work-in-progress album.

Even now, I often meet people who say that the album has a very special place in their heart.

Memories to treasure.

And I feel blessed to now have a visual memento too.

Where did those 40 years go?

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