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The Magic Bridge

Richard Dawson can look like a folk singer: one bearded man with an acoustic guitar, albeit an amplified one, and can sometimes sound like a bit like one too. His playing, though, owes as much to avant-garde free improvisation as it does to traditional fingerpicking & strumming, while the subject-matter of his fascinating lyrics can incorporate historical events, mundane contemporary references, and the surreal or fantastical. The overall effect is a singular one, and not readily categorisable.

I first heard him in late 2014, when his song 'The Vile Stuff'' (drawn from his fourth album Nothing Important) was played on BBC 6 Music. Not completely sold, but curious, I looked on-line and found a  YouTube clip of him performing 'Black Dog in the Sky' - and that reeled me in. This song formed part of a 2011 album The Magic Bridge, which, conveniently, was re-issued in 2015 as interest in his music grew. I ordered a CD copy of it. 

'Black Dog in the Sky' concerns a traveller who is robbed, only to see the offending "moon-faced vagabonds" suffer a grisly fate via seemingly supernatural means - as punishment for their crime, or by random chance? It's not really made clear. 'Wooden Bag', another highlight on the disc, has to do with a knapsack "purchased for 30 francs from a market in Geneva in 1968" and its miscellaneous contents. Other songs have titles like 'Grandad's Deathbed Hallucinations' and 'Man Has Been Struck Down By Hands Unseen'. There are a couple of instrumentals too. It's a very striking album by a unique talent who was then just beginning to hit his creative stride.

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