Trader Horne - Morning Way

All over the world,

owners have jealously guarded their vinyl copies of Trader Horne’s only album, Morning

Way, ever since its 1970 release. The reasons for that, of course, are the

marvellous musicianship, staggering lyrical inventiveness, and irresistible

otherness that are written through all the songs like words in a stick of rock.

Notions of this being a ‘lost-classic’ were redundant before they were

whispered, the album is simply too good and too important. We have here a

record that stands like a statue, guarding the entrance to a musical pathway

less travelled, a unique and inspiring trail that leads one to the likes of Mellow

Candle, Mourning Phase, Forest, Comus, Jan Dukes de Grey and a host of others.

If the album has been wronged by history, it is because its significance to the

careers of its makers and the subsequent influence they had has been

overlooked. Time, of course, has a history of righting wrongs; even minor

musical ones from forgotten decades. So it is then with Morning Way, a one-off piece of magic from a

one-off duo that has refused to disappear or go quietly into the night.

Judy Dyble had

fronted her own band, Judy and the Folkmen, between 1964 and 1966. The

following year she was invited to join the hippest new US-influenced rock band

on the block, Fairport Convention. It didn’t last long and the following year

saw her advertising in Melody Maker for a job. Also redundant at this time was

her boyfriend, Fairport vocalist Ian McDonald and together they were employed

by a strange, beguiling bunch who called themselves, not very inspiringly, Giles,

Giles and Fripp. It was a step that

would change the course of all their careers. The boys evolved into King

Crimson, while Judy, never really content and now split from McDonald, went her

own way once more. What she left behind from this time however, in the back

pages of King Crimson lore, is revered and remembered by fans to this day. Her

version of Crimson classic, I Talk To The Wind, was simply never bettered and should perhaps have graced the

bands incomparable debut, In the Court of the Crimson King. As an aside, and to

underline her oddball-folk credentials, Judy also guested on the inspired

mythological madness that was The Minotaur’s Song, from the Incredible String

Band masterpiece, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter.

Jackie McCauley had

been making a name for himself in a world entirely different from the one Judy

had been frequenting, namely that of The Electric Garden and the UFO club. Irish

by descent, Jackie had spent 1965 pounding the ivories for Van Morrison’s

seminal Them and had returned to the band to provide lead vocals and harmonica

after Van the Man split. A multi-instrumentalist and talented songwriter, McCauley,

or McAuley or Macauley (it’s different everywhere you look), was in many ways

the ideal partner for Dyble, despite their different musical backgrounds. After

Them, he soldiered on with a few

other members of the band in an outfit called the Belfast Gypsies, before

broadening his musical horizons in first Europe and then Morocco.

How the two came

together does not seem to have been satisfactorily laid down in the UK folk-rock

scriptures and that will no doubt be rectified soon. Jackie had wanted to write

a children’s album, as was all the rage at the end of the sixties and had most

of the songs already. What Judy brought, apart from the title track and the

gorgeous, Velvet To Atone (co-written by Martin Quittenton from Steamhammer),

was one of UK

folks most enduring and beautiful voices. Their strange name was apparently the

nickname of John Peel’s nanny, Florence Horne, who had acquired the additional

‘Trader’ in homage to the 1931 film about swashbuckling ivory trader, Alfred

Horne. The recording of the film was a disaster by all accounts and included

several unfortunate deaths, the fatality of one of the cast at the horn of a

rhino even made the final cut.

Away from the dangers

of rhino horns, Trader Horne, by 1969, were doing fine. Their first release, as

was the norm for new signings to the Pye offshoot Dawn in 1969, was a single.

Backed by Morning Way on the b-side, Sheena did good and paved the way for the

album proper.

Released in 1970, Morning

Way perfectly captured the talents of both the players and was unlike anything

that either of them had done up until this point. Loosely conceptual about the

rites of passage into the adult world, the album is replete with the kind of

lyrical passages and instrumental motifs that one would expect on a concept

record. There is however, something far less tangible, something enigmatic and

elusive that keeps this album a mystery, no matter how many times you’ve heard

it, or how well you think you know it. It shares that trait with ISB’s, The

Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter or Mellow Candle’s, Swaddling Songs.

Whatever it is, it’s

wonderful, across thirteen album tracks and two bonuses you can hear why it

has become so collectable and loved. From the Tolkienesque (did anyone not read

the book at this time), Three Rings For Eleven Kings and Children Of Oare, to

the extraordinary Mixed Up Kind and beyond to a version of Bessie Smith’s No One

Knows When You’re Down And Out, recorded as Down And Out Blues, this is a record

that will surprise, beguile, amuse and take your breath away – sometimes all at

the same time. Assisting on the album are Ray Elliott, from Them on

flute and bass clarinet, bass-guitarist John Godfrey and Andy White on drums.

The band were due to

be launched at a festival, set-up with the express purpose of launching them –

the now famous Hollywood Music Festival in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Before this could happen, but after the release of another single, Judy called

time on the project, citing a ‘tantrum’. Trader Horne, like the great white

hunter they were inadvertently named after, became history.

Morning Way was never

a popular record, nor will it ever be. That is a shame of course but it’s still

one that continues to influence others. In the neo-folk revival of the last few

years where year zero for Folk was 1960, albums this good have not gone

unnoticed. There are many who continue to celebrate this record and rightly so,

congratulations for joining them, you will not be disappointed.

Trader Horne –

Morning Way