Changes

We have lost many stars in the last few weeks whose passing would normally have been given more attention if it had not been for the burning topic of the moment. Kenny Rogers and Bill Withers may have been given due recognition by the BBC, but surely Honor Blackman warranted more coverage. I would also like to think that even the London media would have given more space to Peter Walker.

If most of this post is dedicated to Julie Felix, it is mainly because of her personal impact. She was on the bill of the Beaulieu "world" folk festival of August 1966. I went down for the first evening if I recall correctly as part of a trip organised by a Ministry of Transport social club. I remember a  clear warm day and an unseasonably cold evening and night. Also on the bill that night were the Dubliners (whose lead singer put away a prodigious amount of alcohol between sets), Phil Ochs, John Renbourn, Dave Swarbrick and Ramblin' Jack Elliott. 

Julie Felix had just started to make it on the national scene and the guy introducing her emphasised how she had served her time touring the folk clubs, sleeping on friends' floors and so on. The LP issued that year (back cover below) contained a number of the songs she sang at Beaulieu, with the bonus of her version of "Changes" by Phil Ochs. It also included a couple of her own compositions and the co-written mysterious "Brain Blood Volume".  (Another bonus of the LP is that it does not contain Tom Paxton's Zoo song, which she hated, as her friend and agent confirmed on Last Word last Friday.) 


The linking in the public mind with Joan Baez also irked Felix, though she admired Baez (as I do). There was a superficial resemblance (dark hair, ethnic background) but their voices were distinct. Baez's pure soprano is virtually unique in the folk world but so were Felix's warm tones in her lower register. That warmth came across on that cold night in 1966 as she expressed her sympathy with us shivering on the Beaulieu lawns.