Wyrd Folk Classic Artist Profile

Vahti Bunyan          

UK originally mid to late 1960s

Artist Biography

Vashti Bunyan is an enigma in British folk music that has only been understood in the last ten years.   Following explusion from art school in 1964 Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones manager discovered her singing in London.  Her music was delicate Judy Collins style folk music but Loog Oldham sought to shape her as a pop star.  He got her to record a Rolling Stones song and released it on Decca and then as he formed Immediate he arranged for her to record many unreleased pop style songs.  By 1968 this cynical attempt to make her a pop star left her dejected particularly as her heart was in folk music.  She decided to give up her life and travel in a traditional caravan up to Scotland to join Donovan.

During that year she wrote a number of highly personal songs that documented her new experiences living close to the land in isolation.  After encouragement from Derroll Adams she took her songs to Joe Boyd.  Joe Boyd was the natural producer for her, already a legend by then producing The Incredible String Band, John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake.  He recorded the album and bought in sympathetic musicians from Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band to assist on some songs.

The album was released in 1970 but with little support from the artist it didn't sell and languished in obscurity for thirty years.  The artist lived a life of travel and isolation left alone by the music industry.  Over the years it became a legendary album to many folk collectors with album prices rising to high figures.  In the last couple of years Vashti has once again taken tentative steps back into some involvement in music notably performing with highly respected ambient electronic band Piano Magic. 

The Music

The album has thankfully been re-released on CD in 2001 with thanks included from the artists and amongst folk collectors it has been a prized part of many collections.  On the CD is the complete album taken from the master tapes and also extra songs taken from vinyl.  Listening to the album the music is staggeringly innocent, almost completely uninformed by the outside world.  If ever there is an album that has come from the isolation rural experience it is this.  In truth the music could have been made at any time during the last few hundred years.  The instrumentation is sympathetic and almost entirely acoustic.  The songs talk about the world with wide eyed joy.  In an age of commercialism and cynicism this album is the opposite of that attitude to point of it almost unsettling many listeners.  To some the singer sounds impossibly naive or twee but repeated listening shows that this is not the case, it is not a cultivated persona but a genuine reflection of some rejecting the modern world, possibly damaged and certainly needing to rediscover space of their own.   We know that the artist was living a life that had no outside influence, no interaction of significance with society and therefore the songs crafted over time are a true and genuine reflection of their experience.  It is therefore like an insight into another world and once the listener chooses to succomb to it is devastatingly emotional and moving.  These songs are not adorned or garish, the vocals are soft, delicate to the point of disappearance and the whole is like sharing part of the artist's physical journey away from the city and towards the remotest parts of Britain. 

The musicians

Robert Kirby of Nick Drake fame arranged the sparse strings that are on some songs.  This is an unintentional but useful connection as for the writer Vashti Bunyan is a kind of parallel artist to Nick Drake working in a similarly personal folk style increasingly isolated (though for different reasons) from mains tream society.  Indeed it is known that the two artists knew each other vaguely.

Robin Williamson of Incredible String Band

Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention

Simon Nichol of Fairport Convention

Back to the land

'Vashti's songs may seem unreal to urbanised listeners but they should listen with open hearts and minds; I have never known anyone whose music is so completely a reflection of their life and spirit.'  Joe Boyd, original sleeve notes 1970.

Vashti Bunyan was compiled on the 'Lammas Night Laments' series of wyrd-folk CDrs.

To learn more click here.

Vashti Bunyan has a web site with diary extracts from the 1960s.

To visit now click here http://www.anotherday.co.uk

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