Patrick Jennings hears how Daniel Rachel discovered that folk can be a dirty word, why he loves his four-track… and hates his amp
Twist Shtick
‘To be honest, it’s only since the record was finished that I’ve found out that the word ‘folk’ has any negative connotations at all’, admits Daniel Rachel. A Simple Twist of Folk, the title of the former Rachels Basement man’s first solo album, was a play on a Bob Dylan song off Blood On The Tracks, but it’s an apt label for an album augmented by the classy guitar and mandolin playing of producer Marc Olivier and with Rachel and his ’83 Lowden at its backbone. However, the dreamy ‘aloha’ rhythms of Mamma Cha Cha (Doo Doo Wah) and in particular the demented ‘60’s pop-psychedelia of Free My Mind will make sure any Real Folk Societies out there will never accept Rachel as a member.
‘I did Free My Mind on my Tele and Sidekick Reverb, which I’ve been trying to sell for the past ten years, but nobody’s wanted to by them! I’ve always wanted to get a great valve amp, but that amp did the job for the song I suppose’, he admits grudgingly. One old piece of kit he’s never getting rid of is his Yamaha four-track, on which all the demos were done — and some of which made it to the final album. ‘If you listen really closely to Ragged Smile you can hear the original click track I did…it spilled over onto the guitar track that we lifted. But it’s got that warmth digital recording equipment doesn’t have — which is funny because when I started doing the album, I thought it wouldn’t sound as good as it could do because we lacked all the fancy stuff like compression units.’
Long before worrying about recording though, Rachel’s priority was making his songs as attention grabbing as possible. ‘My challenge to myself as a songwriter is to write a song as good as Positively Fourth Street by Bob Dylan’, he declares.‘It’s got eight verses, four lines to each verse and the melody is over after the first two lines of each verse. And how he keeps up your interest is astonishing; there’s no solo, chorus, or middle eight. It breaks all the rules, yet it was still a hit song. The closest I’ve ever come is on In My Life, but that’s got a chorus, so even that was a failure!’
In My Life, however, was a big crowd favourite in his native Midlands and Rachel banked on it being so again when he came to play in London clubs. However, it was the poignant Letter To A Soldier that got the best reaction. ‘It shows how important performance is when getting songs across’, considers Rachel. ‘It’s why I never play electric live. I’ve tried, but I’ve always felt really clumsy. There’s something about an acoustic guitar that inspires me, just the way the wood feels… I’ve even done an acoustic guitar solo on Meet Me At The Bridge, which proves there’s nothing you can’t do with it’.
PATRICK
JENNINGS
GUITAR MAGAZINE
