Reviews
Clive Woolf Album: Live At Dingle's, 1974
Label: Folk London
Tracks: 12
Website: https://folklondon.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-dingle-s-1974
Clive was a red-hot - and highly regarded - singer and guitarist who initially performed solo then later worked with Dick Gaughan in the short-lived Firewater and with the electric folk quartet Spencer's Feat. Clive's burgeoning performing career was tragically ended when aged just 28 by a brain illness which left him unable to play guitar and he was forced to retire from performing professionally. He never released a studio recording of his own (the solo recordings that he had made with Bill Leader are now believed lost, and his playing can only be heard on isolated tracks by Rosemary Hardman and George Deacon & Marion Ross), but his daughter Bex has carefully restored and cleaned up, and now released, a tape recording of him made at Dingle's Folk Club in central London on 9th January 1974 (just weeks before he fell ill); his other daughter Laura has provided cover art for the release. The timing of its appearance is especially fortuitous, since Clive turned 80 in June of this year.
Right from the outset, the recording presents a performer perfectly at ease with an audience, knowing exactly what he can get away with, balancing a quick wit and often cheeky banter with succinct informative intros. But what strikes the listener most is Clive's distinctively personal way with a song. His singing is compelling - strong, stylish and confident in its use of decoration - and his guitar accompaniment is marvellously fluid and inventive, and almost quietly virtuoso in the non-shouty sense. All in all, most impressive. And no wonder, then, that he was so highly regarded by his peers that two benefit concerts for him after his illness featured Martin Carthy, Dick Gaughan, June Tabor, Maddy Prior, the Young Tradition, Steve Ashley, and Robin & Barry Dransfield!
Clive's repertoire consists entirely of traditional songs; he always had an eye for interesting, lesser-known versions, of which there are several examples in this set (Lord Gregory, On Board Of A Ninety-eight, Worcester City, Girl From The North Country, Lord Thomas & Fair Eleanor). His renditions of many of his chosen songs are among the best you'll hear, not least for feeling absolutely "bedded in" and well practised. The Emigrant, which opens the set, is, I understand, regarded as Clive's "signature" song.
The sound quality is stunningly good and full of presence. My only minor complaint is that the tracks are all spliced quite abruptly at the end - presumably to edit out applause, but I feel this robs the set as a whole of a certain amount of atmosphere that was built up by the performances. Even so, the enormous historical and musical value of this release is not to be challenged.
David Kidman
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