Decameron, Parabola Road -- The Anthology (Castle Music, 2004)
Named after Boccacio's Decameron, this English folk band lasted almost a decade between 1968 and 1976. Their music was very distinctive with highly literate word skills allied to florid, often opaque arrangements. They flitted between the acid folk, contemporary folk and folk rock fields but never settled successfully in any one genre. Resembling a cross between The Strawbs, Magna Carta, latter-day Incredible String Band and Amazing Blondel, Decameron was very much a band of its period. Their music was an eclectic mix of contemporary folk with the late ends of Pschycedelia, West Coast FM Rock, and Progressive Rock styles with subtle nods towards 30's jazz and 50's rock and roll thrown in.
Three decades later, their music has a strange haunting quality that sounds remarkably fresh. Decameron's main composers, Johnny Coppin and Dave Bell, had the audacity to create literate wordscapes draped in accompaniment that was both extensive and elegant. Decameron wasn't a band that one could take in 3-minute sound bytes and declare those as definitive. Their albums needed time and effort to decipher and assimilate into the subconscious, but when lodged there, they were difficult to shake from memory.
Decameron's recorded output now gets a retrospective treatment in the two releases listed here -- the anthology Parabola Road and a revamped version of their first album Say Hello to the Band. Formed in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, England in 1968, Decameron is comprised of singer-songwriters Johnny Coppin and Dave Bell and multi-instrumentalists Al Fenn and Geoff March. Playing the local folk circuit, they built up a considerable following -- so much so that at the dawn of the acid folk era record companies were chasing them. They signed with Phonogram and their first album was released on Vertigo in 1973 to coincide with a UK tour where they shared the bill with Gordon Giltrap. Produced by Sandy Roberton, this was a confident debut that outlined the basic premise of their approach.
With strong four-part harmonies and a solid bank of original songs aided with session heavies like B.J. Cole and Andy Roberts, the results were solid mid-70's contemporary folk in the Anglo-Saxon singer-songwriter vein, as opposed to the rampant Americanisms of the time. While influenced by American music forms, Decameron sang in their own accents and wrote in a local context. Faux folk ballads like 'Crows' and 'Byard's Leap' -- the latter a witchery based epic -- saw them writing in a mock traditional vein, while the title track and 'Innocent Sylvester Prime' were a wistful echo of the Strawbs. However, it is tracks like 'The Moons in A' and Dave Bell's 'Ride a Lame Pony' which emerge as best contenders, free of outside influence, that still resonate now. While not as lavish or fully realised as their later recordings, Say Hello to the Band was a confident debut. Long out of print, it is now available on a CDR produced and released by the band with seven bonus tracks, masquerading under the title of Say Hello to the Band Andthebestofwhatsleft! These tracks mark the turn of events that led to the follow up album being recorded and scrapped and re-recorded as their official second album Mammoth Special, issued on Mooncrest in 1974.Parabola Road, the anthology named after their communal residence in Cheltenham's Parabola Road, gathers Decameron's next three albums: Mammoth Special, Third Light, and Tomorrow's Pantomime in their entirety, along with a slew of bonus tracks. The latter includes their Surfer tribute alter ego The Magnificent Mercury Brothers, some previously unreleased material, and tracks from their 2001 reunion concert issued on the Charity CD.
1974's Mammoth Special was a bolder, richer, more fully-realised affair in which the songs breathed more freely in their own light and created their own atmospheres. Dennis Linde's production and Decameron's increased confidence highlight their multi-instrumental and vocal abilities. A band sufficiently versatile as this at the time was quite exceptional, and Decameron's overall versatility grew when the addition of Dik Cadbury increased Decameron to a quintet. Mammoth Special zooms in with the ebullient title track accented with swirling strings and Johnny Coppin's distinctive lead vocal. Complete with oblique lyrics and luscious vocal harmonies, it is a stirring and quirky opener. Next up is a mostly acapella cover of Stephen Stills' 'Rock and Roll Woman', which again highlights Decameron's vocal expertise. From Dave Bell's intro to the five-strong vocal attack, the arrangement shows superb vocal control against the background beat of John Halsey's drums and percussion. Another track that displays Decameron's lightness of touch was 'Jan', which lamented the demise of a 30's band leader, conjuring up an atmosphere of Sunday afternoon tea dances in a light cocktail Jazz type arrangement.
Adding contrast are the heavier, more seriously minded pieces that are richly orchestrated and lavishly arranged. Three epic ballads that benefit from the wide screen approach are 'Late on Lady Day', 'Just Enough Like Home', and the closing track 'The Empty Space'. 'Late on Lady Day' centres on the hiring fairs where workers were hired by avaricious farmers on an annual basis to work their lands for basic accommodation and pittance wages. This song, however, dwells on the sense of rejection felt by those not chosen due to age and infirmity and their feelings of desolation. 'Just Enough Like Home' begins with Dave Bell intoning 'A curse is on the day. A black and biting curse is she', suggesting thoughts of something in the classic Richard Thompson lovelorn reverie but which quickly gives way to a dramatic orchestral climax. The closing track 'The Empty Space' is an emotionally wrought description of a turnstile-like romantic relationship and the loss of innocence and patience experienced in a perpetually unrequited situation. Here, echoes of The Strawbs are well in evidence, with Dave Bell's anguished vocals and emotionally wrought lyrics allied to Robert Kirby's orchestration.
The comparison with The Strawbs is appropriate, as much of Decemeron's material was emotionally wrought and delivered with the due thoughtfulness. What at the time may have sounded overworked and overwrought now sounds strangely attractive and astute. On reflection, Mammoth Special shows a sense of fertile imagination intuitively used to create something fresh, different yet rooted in the folk tradition.
Decameron's third album, appropriately called Third Light, emerged in September 1975 on Transatlantic Records. This album has quite a chequered history. It was originally called Beyond the Days and planned for release on Mooncrest Records in June 1975 to coincide with a headlining concert in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday June 4th, with support from Gay and Terry Woods. The album was scrapped but was revamped and released by Transatlantic with a new title in the autumn of that year, followed by a UK tour with their Cheltenham compatriot Steve Ashley and Dutch Folk-Rock band Fungus. Produced by Tom Allom, Third Light is perhaps Decameron's most fully realised statement to date. It harnesses their lyrical perception, and musical expertise into producing a definitive statement. The opener 'Rock and Roll Away' shows a more forceful glide, while 'All the Best Wishes' acts as a springboard for their lavish harmonies. 'Saturday' in its wistfulness provides a pop base, while 'The Ungodly' with its political undercurrent and the social commentary in 'Wide as the Years' display a controlled sense of dynamics and narrative skill allied to watertight arrangements. 'Journey's End' is a luscious ballad complete with big screen dynamics. Its bedfellow, Tim Buckley's 'Morning Glory' from 'Goodbye and Hello', both emotionally wrought performances, were less ornate than their predecessors and more sensitively handled, combining passion, reserve and restraint. Tighter and more closely bonded performance and arrangement wise than Mammoth Special, Third Light is, in my mind, Decameron's finest hour as a unit.
Tomorrow's Pantomime, Decameron's fourth and final album, was issued in mid-1976. Self-produced, it was their most obviously rock influenced effort. All the tracks were Coppin/Bell compositions that harked back to Say Hello to the Band, and it sounds like an evolved version of their debut effort. 'Ask Me Tomorrow' is the most attractive rock ballad, while the harrowing 'The Shadows on the Stairs' trails the result of marital breakdown and its effects on children. 'Dancing' is one of those happy faces on a broken heart tales of chimerical fallout while 'So this is God's Country'/'Peace with Honour' consists of two different reflections on America. Overall, the album is bleaker and darker atmospherically in outlook than either Third Light or Mammoth Special. However it did show how well Decameron had bonded as a musical unit. There were no wayward ideas or loose connections -- Tomorrow's Pantomime was bound like a coiled spring.
However, Tomorrow's Pantomime saw the end of an era, as Decameron threw in the towel in late 1976 due to financial constraints. There have been occasional reunions. One of the most recent, in 2001, was captured on CD and two tracks are featured on Parabola Road. The regular reunions and their coming together to compile Parabola Road augurs well for the future of one of England's most inventive acid folk outfits. The bonus tracks 'Postcards From Cornwall' and 'About Time' show that there's still a lot of life in their collective being.
When listening through Decameron's recorded output, it becomes clear that this was much more than simply a folk band. They had both creative skill and musical imagination that separated them from their peers. However, this very eclecticism was what stopped them from gaining mainstream success. Decameron often strayed ideologically into places more associated with the Progressive Rock brotherhood of the time, where larger than life sound-scapes worked and meant something. They helped create a sense of meaning and importance. They looked beyond the narrow parameters of folk music and invested strongly in fusing styles with Pop, World Music as we know it now, and contemporary classical styles within the one ideological framework. They believed in a wider musical consciousness with no strict boundaries, and explored this concept to the best of their ability. Punk of course shot this ideology in the head, but for an example of how mid-70's rock idioms work in a folk based manner, parts of Mammoth Special and Third Light are at times as close to perfection in this realm as one can get.
With many UK folk-rock acts of the period, including Steeleye Span, Decameron exhibited a penchant for US rock and roll for their encore choices. For their encores Decameron would morph into their surfer counterparts The Magnificent Mercury Brothers and perform a set of Beach Boys/Jan and Dean covers. They even recorded an EP 'New Girl in School'/ 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love' for Transatlantic in 1976 which scored heavy airplay and threatened to become a UK summer chart hit.
Parabola Road offers a unique perspective of the cross-pollination of English pastoral lyricism, semi-classical expertise and American folk-rock musicality. Decameron was an English band with an American headspace on record. Their use of Americana was more sensual and suggestive, rather than being obvious and detrimental to the pastoral nature of their Anglo-Saxon upbringing. Songwriters Johnny Coppin and Dave Bell had visited the States on various occasions, Coppin on holiday in 1969 and Bell for a later period. Their viewpoints on American life are expressed on 'So this is God's Country', the closing track on Tomorrow's Pantomime. Their choice of Buffalo Springfield's 'Rock and Roll Woman' and Tim Buckley's 'Morning Glory' as covers showed their preferential colours as did their Magnificent Mercury Brothers period that equaled full-time revivalists like Sha Na Na at their own game.
In conclusion, Decameron was a band rooted in its own era; yet it was also a forward-looking outfit. They spanned a wide spectrum of sounds, ideologies and influences with equal skill and perception. Along with The Strawbs, Magna Carta and Gryphon, Decameron purveyed a very English type of contemporary folk/rock fusion. Much as they disliked being labeled as a 'folk rock' band, that is what they were. It wasn't folk rock in the sense of electrifying old ballads and racy dance tunes, but more in the American sense of the word, where words, music, images, and atmospheres combined with sublime harmony vocals to produce something unique and personalised. Their choice of Sandy Roberton and Dennis Linde as producers for their first two albums, cover versions and use of orchestration and arrangements borrowed as much from Elmer Bernstein, Van Dyke Parks and Joshua Rifkin as from Robert Kirby's pastoral nature.
If any English contemporary folk band was closer to the American ideology of folk-rock while reserving its English nature, sound and lyrical perception than Decameron was, I have yet to hear it. If there was ever a band that could follow Fairport Convention's original ideology in crossing both sides of the American and English folk-rock divides, this was it.
