MIKE COOPER
''PAPER AND SMOKE, DISC TWO''
2000
137:08
DISC ONE
1. Paper And Smoke/3:56
2. Night Journey/5:09
3. Think She Knows Me Now/4:23
4. Good Times/3:25
5. Trout Steel/2:20
6. Your Lovely Ways Pt 1 & Pt 2/7:13
7. Three Forty Eight/3:50
8. The Ballad Of Fulton Allen/3:46
9. Death Letter/3:12
10. Start Of A Journey/3:25
11. Sitting Here Watching/3:08
12. Weeping Rose/3:20
13. So Glad (That I Found) You/15:19
14. Do I Know You/4:04
DISC TWO
1. Watching You Fall Pt 1 & Part 2/7:43
2. Places I Know/2:25
3. Time In Hand/3:32
4. Wish She Was With Me/2:17
5. A Half Sunday Homage To A Whole Leonardo Da Vinci/1:33
6. Don't Talk Too Fast/3:17
7. Thinking Back/5:19
8. The Singing Tree/5:36
9. In The Mourninig/5:14
10. Saturday Blues/4:10
11. Broken Bridges/4:40
12. Country Water/3:02
13. Journey To The East/3:36
14. Too Late Now/3:53
15. Time To Time/8:28
16. That's How/4:17
REVIEW
by Skip Jansen
Released in 2000, this double CD collects remastered tracks that were issued originally on compilations on Pye and Dawn, some rare EPs, and 7" releases, making a total of 30 cuts from this diverse British guitarist, whose music encompassed folk, blues, traditional, jazz, country, and avant-garde. His remarkable late-'60s and early-'70s LPs Oh Really?, Trout Steel, Do I Know You?, and Places I Know are among the most overlooked British blues and folk recordings of the era, and along with this compilation of rarities are well worth the time of fans of Bert Jansch, Pentangle, Davy Graham, Wizz Jones, and the like.
BIOGRAPHY
By ROVI
b. 1943, England. A singer and guitarist based for most of his years in Reading, Berkshire, England, Cooper was one of the leading lights of the country blues movement in Britain in the 60s. His first bookings came at the Shades cafe, and led to his first recording, Out Of The Shades, an EP for the independent Kennet Records label. By now a major advocate of the blues, he established a popular folk/blues club in Reading and was one of the instigators of the Matchbox label, for which he also recorded. There were even rumours that he turned down an offer to join the Rolling Stones.
Between 1968 and 1974 Cooper appeared on the Pye Records, Dawn and Fresh Air labels, and he also contributed guitar work to records by Ian A. Anderson, Stefan Grossman and Heron. His own solo album debut came in 1969 with Oh Really?, but it was not until the advent of a follow-up collection a year later that he had begun to write his own material. This only gelled fully on the same year’s minor masterpiece,
Trout Steel, a visionary mix of blues and free jazz improvisation. The formula was further refined on 1971’s Places I Know, which was scheduled to have accompanied his collaboration with Reading band Machine Gun as a double album. In the event Dawn/Pye released each record separately and, unsure of Cooper’s direction, refused to countenance any further records. Cooper, however, was still under
contract, and the two-year recording hiatus this enforced undoubtedly damaged his career. Disillusioned, he travelled to Spain to become a fisherman, until Tony Hall of the Fresh Air production company invited him back to record Life And Death In Paradise in 1974. The album allowed his bitterness towards the music industry to surface.
Another period of seclusion, this time in Heidelberg, Germany, followed. There he liaised with local actors and poets, and was drawn to the underground avant garde scene. On his return to England he joined Eddie Prevost’s band and also worked with saxophonist Lol Coxhill. 1982’s Live From Papa Madeo saw
him return to the blues, this time rooted in the Delta tradition rather than his previous ragtime-inspired approach. Further musical expansion, with the experimental dance project Tristerio System and world music with Dudu Pukwana, ensued. Truly eclectic, he also flirted with Greek Rembetico and Hawaiian slide guitar music, before forming the Recedents with Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner, and the
Uptown Hawaiians with Coxhill, French slide guitarist Cyril Lefebvre, Steve Beresford and Max Eastley.
Cooper has written extensively about the Hawaiian slack key guitar style and is a regular contributor to the UK magazine Folk Roots aka fROOTS.
Now based in Rome, Cooper appears more rarely in England these days, but his tally of over 40 recordings provides as richly varied an output as it is possible to imagine. His work in the new millennium was largely produced on limited edition CD-Rs and released through his own Hipshot label.
Cooper describes his most recent recordings as ‘ambient electronic exotica’.
''PAPER AND SMOKE, DISC TWO''
2000
137:08
DISC ONE
1. Paper And Smoke/3:56
2. Night Journey/5:09
3. Think She Knows Me Now/4:23
4. Good Times/3:25
5. Trout Steel/2:20
6. Your Lovely Ways Pt 1 & Pt 2/7:13
7. Three Forty Eight/3:50
8. The Ballad Of Fulton Allen/3:46
9. Death Letter/3:12
10. Start Of A Journey/3:25
11. Sitting Here Watching/3:08
12. Weeping Rose/3:20
13. So Glad (That I Found) You/15:19
14. Do I Know You/4:04
DISC TWO
1. Watching You Fall Pt 1 & Part 2/7:43
2. Places I Know/2:25
3. Time In Hand/3:32
4. Wish She Was With Me/2:17
5. A Half Sunday Homage To A Whole Leonardo Da Vinci/1:33
6. Don't Talk Too Fast/3:17
7. Thinking Back/5:19
8. The Singing Tree/5:36
9. In The Mourninig/5:14
10. Saturday Blues/4:10
11. Broken Bridges/4:40
12. Country Water/3:02
13. Journey To The East/3:36
14. Too Late Now/3:53
15. Time To Time/8:28
16. That's How/4:17
REVIEW
by Skip Jansen
Released in 2000, this double CD collects remastered tracks that were issued originally on compilations on Pye and Dawn, some rare EPs, and 7" releases, making a total of 30 cuts from this diverse British guitarist, whose music encompassed folk, blues, traditional, jazz, country, and avant-garde. His remarkable late-'60s and early-'70s LPs Oh Really?, Trout Steel, Do I Know You?, and Places I Know are among the most overlooked British blues and folk recordings of the era, and along with this compilation of rarities are well worth the time of fans of Bert Jansch, Pentangle, Davy Graham, Wizz Jones, and the like.
BIOGRAPHY
By ROVI
b. 1943, England. A singer and guitarist based for most of his years in Reading, Berkshire, England, Cooper was one of the leading lights of the country blues movement in Britain in the 60s. His first bookings came at the Shades cafe, and led to his first recording, Out Of The Shades, an EP for the independent Kennet Records label. By now a major advocate of the blues, he established a popular folk/blues club in Reading and was one of the instigators of the Matchbox label, for which he also recorded. There were even rumours that he turned down an offer to join the Rolling Stones.
Between 1968 and 1974 Cooper appeared on the Pye Records, Dawn and Fresh Air labels, and he also contributed guitar work to records by Ian A. Anderson, Stefan Grossman and Heron. His own solo album debut came in 1969 with Oh Really?, but it was not until the advent of a follow-up collection a year later that he had begun to write his own material. This only gelled fully on the same year’s minor masterpiece,
Trout Steel, a visionary mix of blues and free jazz improvisation. The formula was further refined on 1971’s Places I Know, which was scheduled to have accompanied his collaboration with Reading band Machine Gun as a double album. In the event Dawn/Pye released each record separately and, unsure of Cooper’s direction, refused to countenance any further records. Cooper, however, was still under
contract, and the two-year recording hiatus this enforced undoubtedly damaged his career. Disillusioned, he travelled to Spain to become a fisherman, until Tony Hall of the Fresh Air production company invited him back to record Life And Death In Paradise in 1974. The album allowed his bitterness towards the music industry to surface.
Another period of seclusion, this time in Heidelberg, Germany, followed. There he liaised with local actors and poets, and was drawn to the underground avant garde scene. On his return to England he joined Eddie Prevost’s band and also worked with saxophonist Lol Coxhill. 1982’s Live From Papa Madeo saw
him return to the blues, this time rooted in the Delta tradition rather than his previous ragtime-inspired approach. Further musical expansion, with the experimental dance project Tristerio System and world music with Dudu Pukwana, ensued. Truly eclectic, he also flirted with Greek Rembetico and Hawaiian slide guitar music, before forming the Recedents with Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner, and the
Uptown Hawaiians with Coxhill, French slide guitarist Cyril Lefebvre, Steve Beresford and Max Eastley.
Cooper has written extensively about the Hawaiian slack key guitar style and is a regular contributor to the UK magazine Folk Roots aka fROOTS.
Now based in Rome, Cooper appears more rarely in England these days, but his tally of over 40 recordings provides as richly varied an output as it is possible to imagine. His work in the new millennium was largely produced on limited edition CD-Rs and released through his own Hipshot label.
Cooper describes his most recent recordings as ‘ambient electronic exotica’.
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