HUW BRIS by Huw Parsons
1. BRISTOL AND THE PARSONS FAMILY: Voice - Huw.
Dedicated to my father who, like all his family, was a dyed in the wool Bristolian and all that went with it. And to my grandfather who during the Second World War cowered alone night after night in a subterranean Anderson shelter in Brislington, while bombs and incendiaries rained down.
2. TOOLS & TRINKETS: Voices - Huw (part-recorded at The Halo Café in the Gloucester Road.) Music - The Remi Harris Trio.
This poem is named after the cargo that was carried by countless Bristol ships to the West coast of Africa, where it was exchanged for slaves. However, the poem has nothing to do with the slave trade but is about a passionate encounter in Clifton's camera obscura.
3. KINGDOM COME: Voice - Huw (recorded in Temple Meads Station.) Music John & Jaye Vickers (Klezmerpolitan.)
A tale of lost love in Temple Meads Station, based very loosely on W.H. Auden's poem 'Night Mail.' The title 'Kingdom Come' refers to Isumbard Kingdom Brunel, the architect of the first station at Temple Meads.
4. MAPPA MONDAY: Voices - Sian Drinan and Huw (recorded on Bristol's quayside.)
A dream poem about John Cabot's voyage to the 'New founde lande' and his subsequent return to Bristol. In the poem I've used thinly disguised lyrics from such icons of Americana as Elvis's 'Heartbreak Hotel,' Chuck Berry's 'Nadine' and 'The House of the Rising Sun.'
5. 'IF' IN BRISTOL: Voice - Huw with the sounds of the city. Music – The Eddie Martin Big Band.
This is a parody of the famous poem 'IF' by Rudyard Kipling. It's what a certain Professor of Creative Writing, whom I won't name, calls “not poetry but just a list of things put into rhyme!” And so it is – but I don't give a ****!
Tracklist
| 1. | BRISTOL AND THE PARSONS FAMILY | 8:45 |
| 2. | TOOLS AND TRINKETS | 4:16 |
| 3. | KINGDOM COME | 3:35 |
| 4. | MAPPA MONDAY | 4:37 |
| 5. | IF IN BRISTOL | 4:44 |
Credits
License
All rights reserved.
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.