Julie Felix: Highway of Diamonds

Rose Theatre, Kidderminster, Worcestershire
6th November, 2009 – Review by Ian Snow

Fans of 1960s folk legend Julie Felix gathered in Kidderminster for the penultimate date of her Highway of Diamonds tour and were rewarded with an evening of warmth, humour, integrity and, above all, superb singing.

Performing to a full house, Julie’s first half set contained a selection of original material and dependable classics from respected songwriters such as Bob Dylan (Times They Are a-Changin’) and Buffy Sainte-Marie (Universal Soldier), while her second half was based on requests from the audience. A simple enough format, but one that gave her fans an opportunity to hear favourites from her forty-year career and ensured a good mixture of songs. Stand out performances from the first half included The Ballad of Doris Kathryn Rodehaver, written about Julie’s mother, and the title track of the tour and accompanying CD, Highway of Diamonds. Second half audience requests included Woody Guthrie’s Plane Crash at Los Gatos, a moving tale of the fate of a group of Mexican immigrants in the Unites States, and Dylan’s Masters of War. A personal highlight for me was Julie’s take on Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – a song enjoying a recent burst of popularity following X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke’s version that topped the 2008 Christmas charts. Among the more unusual performances were La Que Sabe, Julie’s eerie song about a mythological bone collector and reanimator, and Peace is a River, the track that became the show’s second encore and to which Julie encouraged the audience to sing along, being gladly obliged by nearly everyone!

Though the songs themselves can make or break a set, of equal importance is the performer’s relationship with the crowd. Julie had a faultless camaraderie with her audience, and the modest and gently self-deprecating way in which she connected each song with a story, anecdote or general reflection on the strengths and follies of humankind proved to be her greatest strength. As the show progressed, we were treated to her thoughts on everything from President Obama and the problems of religious intolerance to how she met both Sir David Frost – arguably the man who made her famous – and Leonard Cohen, the young Canadian poet-turned-songwriter whose path crossed with Julie’s several times in their respective careers. Told with a winning charm, Julie’s fascinating insights into her musical career had the audience on her side from the outset.

Physically, Julie’s performance was incredible. Though 71, she has more energy than most people half her age, and showed no sign of letting her maturity slow her down. Admitting that she might have taken herself a little too seriously in her late 1960s heyday, Julie came across as relaxed and comfortable with herself and her music – even joking with the audience that she usually gets requests for songs by Joan Baez, the American folk artist with whom she is often compared. Thankfully, no one made that mistake on this occasion!

After the show, Julie met with fans for autographs and general friendly chat, equally happy talking to her longstanding followers and those who, like me, were seeing her perform for the first time. With my signed album in hand, I left the theatre considering myself privileged to have met such a remarkable lady and seen her perform the material that clearly means so much to her. Here’s hoping she has many more years of creativity left.

 

Decca Recordings

RECORD COLLECTOR Christmas 2008

The making of a 60s icon
Sequenced back to back across this double-disc set are The self titled solo debut and the imaginatively-titled The Second Album and The Third Album, which first introduced and, then, consolidated Julie Felix as a permanent feature on the British folk scene from the mid-60s onwards.
Recorded with pared-down production while Felix essentially lived in exile in the UK, these three Decca albums mostly showcase her as an interpreter of originals by the likes of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Donovan, Leadbelly and Peggy Seeger. As such, they reflect the spirit, sentiments and aspirations of the Civil Rights movement transplanted to mid-60s Britain. Though The Third Album was little more than a collection of outtakes from the first two, compiled by producer Hugh Mendl, it did include her hit version of Tom Paxton’s Going To The Zoo, arguably still her most recognised song,
Following her sojourn with Decca, Felix moved to Fontana and, later, to Rak with Mickie Most. It’s these three albums that remain her most essential recordings.
Grahame Bent

MOJO January 2009

Debut trio from the sublime songstress, born in California and adopted by the British folk community (and The Frost Report) in mid-‘60s Dylan-inspired boom. MOJO’s Bob Stanley provides linernotes.

 

Julie Felix Gateshead 14th June 2008

The audience was in for a real treat when 1960s folk icon Julie Felix celebrated her seventieth birthday on stage at the Sage theatre Gateshead, in the North East of England recently.

Julie, looking, ‘forever young’ appeared from the rear of a stage decorated with many colourful balloons emblazoned with the great age she had reached. Wearing a smart white trouser suit that showed off her gorgeous trademark – her long black hair – she then burst into the first song of the evening. Her first set was dedicated to the 60s contemporaries that have inspired her through the years. From the pen of Bob Dylan we heard A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, from Buffy Sainte-Marie we heard Universal Soldier; we then heard Tim Buckley’s beautiful Morning Glory (which features on her brand new album) and from Leonard Cohen, Julie chose Hallelujah. As she went into a Tom Paxton number she quoted a birthday greeting she had just received from him: “At 70, still the possessor of the most radiant smile in Britain. Old friends are the best friends, especially when they get old. But that’s not for awhile yet for you. They tell me that 70 is the new 40, but you’re not a day over 35. All the best. From Tom.” Julie’s beaming smile and her reading style excited the audience and after that, it just had to be time for refreshments.

Back on stage wearing a stunning long dark blue cloak that sparkled with sequins, Julie sang a selection of her own songs, including one about her mother, followed by a sensitive one she had written for her father’s passing. There were many others: Woman, I Miss You, The Witch Song and Fire, Water, Earth & Air. Julie told us of a time she had spent in Barcelona with her late father and that they had both bought Spanish guitars there. It was her father who had taught her to play the Spanish guitar long before she had any aspirations of becoming a professional singer. Never playing this particular guitar before on stage she proceeded to treat us to not one, not two, but three songs with a Spanish flavour this simply mesmerised this already excited crowd! Munequita Linda (‘Magic is The Moonlight’), Solamente Una Vez (‘You Belong To My Heart’) and finally the familiar Cucurrucucu. That guitar with its nylon strings made a delightful sound!

 

Felix’s performance reached its climax with an unaccompanied version of the title track from her 1993 album Branches In The Mist, proving that as this seasoned performer hits the Big 70, she still has the same warmth and power in her voice that set her on the road to stardom all those years ago!

Trevor Tapscott

Alan Wormald (L) and Nigel Franks (R)

Chris Humphries

Trevor Tapscott

Joanna Butler (L) and Fran Collier (R)

Photos by Michael Collier Elsie Rosam and Kenneth Reeves

 

The Drill Hall, London. 19-04-08

From the moment Julie Felix strides onto the bare stage of the Drill Hall, selects one of two acoustic guitars and launches into Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’ she has the largely female audience, most of whom have heard her sing live many times before, in the palm of her hand. And no wonder. Although Felix’s voice is deeper now, and more careworn than when she made her name in the UK singing on the David Frost show more than forty years ago, it remains an instrument of protest and of struggle, a voice with which to break hearts, to entertain and to tell stories, and in her seventieth year Felix has a lot of stories to tell.
Tales of Haitian slaves and old crones capable of breathing life back into dusty bones are intermingled with tales of witches and women, and of course, war.
Let no one be in any doubt. Felix is not happy with the men who run things, in her native America or here where Felix has lived since the early sixties.

It isn’t long before the audience are invited to play their part. In this case to sing the old protest refrain, ‘Ain’t Gonna Study War No More’ as a counterpoint to a new Felix song. The first of several reminders that Felix comes from a generation of singers whose songs changed the world for the better. (Where are they now when we need them?) There is much more for the audience members to do later on and they oblige with gusto and without embarrassment. They know every word. And for younger members of the audience like myself, Felix proves to be a great teacher.
Felix’s repertoire includes much new material as well as covers of songs by Dylan and Tim Buckley, and a rousing rendition of Buffy Saint Marie’s Universal Soldier. All accompanied by Felix’s excellent finger picking on the guitar.
In the second half of a show which lasts more than two hours Felix concentrates on satisfying requests made by the audience during the brief intermission, and for the first time comes a little unstuck. Felix doesn’t remember the words to an unaccompanied song she has not sung for many years. No matter, after a faltering start Felix rewinds and this time is word perfect.
Throughout the evening Felix chats to her audience like an old friend, while jokes about T5 and ID cards prove she takes as much interest in the world now as she ever did. In fact the evening feels less like an audience with Felix and more like a celebration with a dear friend, albeit in my case with a friend I have just met.

After more high kicks, much laughter, a few tears from the audience and two encores Felix wraps things up with a strident cover of Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind, to which she has written an extra verse condemning Bush and Blair’s warmongering around the globe. Clearly Felix, on the road until November, is having a blast.

For details of Julie Felix’s ‘Highway of Diamonds’ tour see www.juliefelix.com

Cary Gee / Tribune Magazine / 25/04/08

 

Unicorn Theatre Abingdon

The Oxford Times

Forty five years in show business and nothing’s changed. She still detests injustices and her commitment to stop exploitation of the vulnerable is as positive as ever – only the names of the politicians have changed.

Wearing a stunning, glittering outfit and high boots, the 1960’s singer/songwriter Julie Felix strode purposefully on to the stage of the atmospheric Unicorn Theatre, in Abingdon, and burst into song. The audience was enthralled. This amazing woman, who is now in her 70th year, is as vibrant and inspirational as she ever was and her message of hope just as direct. Her protests now include pleas against the acceptance of identity cards which will slot us all into categories. She also proved that her commitment to protest through song is as undiminished by speaking bitterly of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Julie returned to Abingdon by popular demand. She has appeared at the Unicorn before and says she loves this little theatre, with its amazing acoustics and its numerous spirits embedded in its ancient walls.

This time she entitled her show Highway of Diamonds, the title of her next CD which will be out shortly. She devoted the first half of the show to the new songs she has written for this recording, seamlessly blending one with another. She dedicated many of her songs in the second half to the very talented local folk singer Pam Aird, who opened the show and who had organised the event for the Abingdon Arts Festival.

The audience selected the rest, challenging Julie to remember the words of countless songs sung by Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Naturally these included Blowin’ In The Wind and I Wish You Love. She rose to the challenge magnificently calling on her Spanish guitar for some, and her steel string guitar for others.

Julie concluded by speaking of the remarkable gift of life which we didn’t always appreciate. She admitted that life often proved a bumpy road, but that it was all the richer for it, as bumps helped us all develop qualities of compassion and love.

Listening to her was indeed an electrifying and unforgettable experience.

By Helen Peacocke

19th March 2008

 

JULIE MAKES NEW FRIENDS & FANS IN REDCAR

The chapel at Sir William Turner’s Almshouses in Kirkleatham Redcar was the beautiful setting for two sell-out concerts for Julie Felix on the 13th and 14th November 2007.   

As part of her Forever Young tour Julie accepted our invitation to perform for us and the immediate response of her fans in the area for the first evening led us to extend the invitation to two nights.   Julie’s voice remains strong and her message is still powerful and sincere.   The performances were a mixture of her own choice of songs reflecting her cultural heritage and her personal thoughts and feelings, along with space after the interval for requests from the audience.   We were able to enjoy favourites such as Masters of War, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, Mr. Tambourine Man, The Fox and the tour’s signature tune Forever Young along with Tabu, Chimes Of Freedom and How Could Anyone Ever Tell You plus many more.    It was a privilege to share her thoughts about her parents, particularly her late father whose birthday it was on the 14th.

Julie stayed back to spend time talking with her many fans after the concert, posing for photographs and signing old LP’s and new CD’s. 

We are thankful to a team of young Air Cadets from the 2394 Squadron who sold programmes and manned the car park to guard our cars in dreadful weather.   They certainly lent a special air to the proceedings.

Both evenings were wonderful experiences and Julie is very keen to come back next year to entertain us again on her “Highway of Diamonds” tour to celebrate her 70th year.   This is likely to be in June – watch this space.

Friends Of Redcar Music And Arts

With concert organiser Mr Peter Southeran

 

The News of Portsmouth

Julie Felix - Forever Young Tour 2007
The Kings Theatre, Southsea, Stage 2: Studio Theatre
Friday 20th July 2007

The 1960’s were a decade of changing fashions, peace and protests and the decade in which Julie Felix sprung onto the British music scene. “England’s answer to Joan Baez”, Julie’s music resisted boundaries and labels and instead concerned itself with creating a positive effect upon the world. Forty years on and here we are, mini skirts and paisley shirts gathering dust but Julie Felix is still going strong….

Bounding into the spotlight with all the enthusiasm and passion one can only imagine she brought with her years before, Julie is clad in black, her cowboy boots harking back to her Californian roots. She opens energetically with her new album’s title song “Forever Young”, extremely fitting for this incredible woman and the over riding theme of her 2007 tour.
 
Playing her guitar with such natural ease and pure joy, Julie’s rich, melodic voice fills the studio space at the King’s Theatre and the lyric’s “May your hands always be busy” are brought to life in front of the audience as she expertly plucks the strings on her guitar. The majority of the audience, it has to be said, are all children of the sixties, clearly lifetime fans of Julie’s music and overjoyed to be seeing Julie perform live. The naivety of the sixties, believing she would be forever young , Julie explains, swapping her guitars between songs, is why she believes it is important to nurture our inner child in order to stay as young as possible for as long as possible. Amen to that.
 
Although not a fan of folk music myself, it is hard not to become enveloped in Julie’s comfortable style and natural charm. Introducing each song with humorous banter and anecdotes she soon has the audience in the palm of her hand. The patchwork rug under her feet adding to the homely and inviting feel of the set. Unapologetic and unembarrassed of minor mistakes, it is clear Julie plays for the joy of music rather than anything else. Her set is carefully balanced between this joy de vivre and spreading her messages about the world around us. Unafraid to embody the lyrics she sings and confident to use all the influences available to her Julie is clearly a supremely talented musician. Only a few songs in and Julie has the audience singing with her the chorus to a fun family song about a particularly cheeky fox…. Eyes twinkling, feet tapping, Julie applauds the audience and thanks them for, seemingly, making her musical experience that bit more enjoyable.
 
The set is an eclectic mix of her own material, childhood songs, passionate Mexican music and classics by Bob Dylan to name but a few. The time passes all too quickly for most and the audience is left with a warm nostalgic glow encircling them. So, it seems that is what Julie’s music is about; it is about inclusion, joy for music and the awareness of the world and nature around us.

Helen Sanders

 

The Hastings and St Leonards Observer  13 July 2007  

Felix goes  on singing

Review:  Julie Felix live at the Stables Theatre
Saturday 6  July 2007  

Like others in the audience, I  had lost track of the musical career of Julie Felix. I knew she remained  committed to the cause of peace as she was on the stage in  Hyde  Park in 2003 and again in  Trafalgar  Square in  2007. It was intriguing to find out that she was still touring and coming  to Hastings.   Julie strode out on the darkened stage and went straight into  Forever Young with such warmth and lightness, that the audience was  immediately drawn to her.   Still the lone folk singer with her guitar, combining poetry and  music, singing from the heart for us all.  
Her musical range was as soft  and as strong as the elements themselves.  Her artistry was beautiful in  Gracia a la Vida (Thank you for Life) by the Chilean folksinger Violeta  Parra.  She put her own stamp  on the Bob Dylan numbers Chimes of Freedom and A Hard Rain, reminding us  how important music is in expressing dissent and protest.
Between songs, Julie shared her  life’s journey in the past 40 years of singing and playing.  Sustained applause for the finale - Universal Soldier - brought Julie back on stage for an encore.  With little prompting the audience sang I Ain’t Gonna Study War No More while Julie wove in Children of  Abraham to create a powerful peace anthem.
After the show, Julie talked to  peace activists, admiring the Hastings Against War banner.  Members of the group are now  discussing how they might arrange another  Hastings concert by this inspiring musician who remains  true to her music and her convictions.

Rona Drennan

 

Bridgwater Arts Centre on 16 February 2007

Julie Felix played the Bridgwater Arts Centre on 16 February 2007.  BBC Somerset reviewer Arthur Duncan went along to the gig to check it out.  Read his review:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/somerset/content/articles/2007/02/21/julie_felix_bridgwater_review_feature.shtml

 

Sound and Healing Workshop

A review ofJulie Felix’s Sound and Healing Workshop.
Lauren Ravenstar, New Age Editor, BellaOnline
 http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art29006.asp

 

Bright Shadows

Bright Shadows CD Review
by Dai Woosnam

 

Interview March 13th 2006

 

BRIGHT SHADOWS

A Review by Dalton Delan, Public Television, USA:

You need this record. Unless you're already lying on your back on Lesbos, Santorini or Corfu, with a glass of retsina, a loved one by your side and shooting stars flaming across the dark Grecian sky, open your heart to the oceanic majesty of Bright Shadows, the latest heartsong manifesto from songstress Julie Felix. I have heard it now many times, and with each listen the lunar pull tugs deeper and deeper. This is a deep pillow for your ears.

To begin with, it is a conceptual voyage on the wine-dark seas of Greece, where sea and sky intertwine and Julie goes deep inside herself to explore the dark heart of the feminine mystique, the pulse of what it is to be a woman and a human on this paradoxical earth. Throughout the disc, we hear, literally, the seas crashing on the shore, and even the rains, and this emotional wash pulls us in and out of a succession of songs that weave a perfect marriage between Julie's lush, deep voice and a Pete Seeger-like celebration of love and living. It is as if classic folk slept with Leonard Cohen and birthed  oceansong. I don't know an artist today who can put together an entire CD with this much melody and integrity. An album is too much these days.

Highlights of this special disc include the opening ode to love and longing for le temps perdu of The Summer for Me, the anthemic prayer We Wish You Love, which includes a glorious reprise as well, the sweet I Miss You and the delicate, almost whispered Annamarie. Frankly, there isn't a weak one in the bunch of grapes, and there is even a wild uptempo ride in Sappho, which neatly divides the disc and pays homage to the goddess of the feminine.

So put on this sonic pillow, lie back and enjoy it. You are entering a world in which the sea and the sky collide, and our mother the ocean rolls you home.

You won't regret it.

In brief:

If you have earphones, put them on! Julie Felix' Bright Shadows is a pillow for the ears and an embrace of the heart. It is a vivid and oceanic voyage into what it means to be human, a woman, and in love with life. Julie's voice is deep and warm, and rides a wind of melody that weaves earth, sea and sky. Play it loud and hear the heartbeat of the world.

 

The Rainbow Collection

The Rainbow Collection... one new fan appreciation
Tom Hunter - Tuesday, 29 November 2005
     If you're looking for a Christmas bargain then look no further than the Julie Felix "The Rainbow Collection". Having read Ian Grant's write-ups on this singer I went and purchased the album at his shop and have being playing it non-stop since I received it in the post. It's a brilliant, moving, stirring collection of seventeen songs with not a dud amongst them. She does covers of Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, in Dylan's case her version of Mister Tambourine Man is in my opinion better than the original... her rendering of "Wild Mountain Thyme" is nothing if not beautiful with the accompaniment of the Avalon Free State Choir particularly impressive.... and the songs from her own pen are just as good with 'Woman' & 'The Ballad of Doris Kathryn Rodehaver' a joy to behold.By the way there's a lovely touch in 'The Ballad...' about half the way through, I wont spoil your surprise!!
Joan Baez was my favourite female vocalist until I heard Julie Felix's voice for the first time on this record.. while Joan is technically polished, Julie's voice carries all the emotion and meaning of the songs to make them almost live and breathe, I havent been so enthused about an album since I heard Big Country's "The Crossing" over 20 years ago.. while no two people's musical tastes are identical I'd be very surprised if anybody bought 'The Rainbow Collection' and felt themselves short-changed after listening to it.Check it out folks for the very best in folk music.
PS. Julie, where have you been hiding all of this time? A voice such as yours deserves all the accolades that the music industry can bestow.

 

Julie's the best of folk

by Jane Delmer
2 November 2005

In a career that has spanned 40 years, Julie Felix has sung out for many causes.
Since her early days on the Frost Report she has: visited the Middle East as a humanitarian ambassador for Christian Aid; urged New Zealanders not to engage in conscription at a concert during the Vietnam War; campaigned for Latin American refugees; founded Guitars Against Landmines and marched against the Iraq War in London.
When she heard about the problems facing Jersey Opera House, she immediately approached the theatre and offered to extend her Rainbow Tour so that she could perform at the Gloucester Street theatre.
'I played their about 25 years ago,' she explains, 'and I thought I would love to play Jersey again. I was coming off my tour at the end of October and I said to myself, "Well I could do one more gig".'
Julie Felix left California in 1964, back-packed around Europe with the Mexican guitar her father gave her and finally fetched up in England where she has stayed, pretty much, ever since. She swiftly became the first solo folk artist to be signed to a major British record company, the first British-based folk singer to fill the Royal Albert HaIl and the first popular singer to perform in Westminster Abbey at the cathedral's 900th anniversary celebrations.
She has never lost the campaigning spirit of the Sixties generation - her latest project is to persuade celebrities to auction their shoes for The Mines Advisory Group. Yet she believes there is a greater need to stand up and be counted now than there was when she first started.
'I sing quite a lot of Dylan songs and I say on stage that we're very fortunate to have his songs, they seem to spotlight and crystalise many of the changes we're facing,' she says. 'There aren't a lot of writers writing about the present situation - apart from a couple of 9/11 songs which were very patriotic.'
'The Sixties was a rehearsal for the present day. We had the vision and the optimism which doesn't exist now. I feel very sorry for young people to day - it's almost like the walls are coming in. I do think the challenges we're facing now are ones of paranoia, hardened materialism, along with the grave problems we face of discipline in schools, kids not having any respect for anything - which is terrifying.'
'Most of the people who come to my gigs are of an age,' she admits. 'But I had a bunch of young kids in their twenties last night. They were really knocked out by the fact that I was singing protest songs. I think it's rare that they hear that kind of music.'
'Sometimes it is hard to maintain that optimism we had in the Sixties but what I've developed along with my political side is a spiritual awareness. If we want to create a peaceful world we have to create an inner peace. On a good day I'll see this and on a bad day I'll see the headlines and think, "Oh My God". But along with the darkness comes the light.'
'We have to march and protest but we also have to live good lives,' she concludes.
She firmly believes that artists can make a difference.
'When we were younger we just used to scream and yell and we didn't change anyone's mind that way,' she says. Music can get through in a kind of subconscious way. I think that music and the arts can rekindle that part of us that does want to be a part of the whole. The American Indians and the ancient people of Britain knew that we had to be part of nature. We are a global family.'
'When you look at these disasters - the tsunami, Katrina - why can't we utilise all this power to heal the planet rather than dropping bombs on it?'
Stopping the use of landmines is one of the issues which drives her now.
'Like many people I was so touched when Princess Diana put on the helmet and walked down that path,' she says. 'I've always been a protestor, I've been involved in CND. I don't see how anyone can see any good in landmines. People might see good in war, but to put landmines in the earth to maim innocent people?'
'The Mines Advisory Group not only works politically to try and ban them, it also trains people that have been injured to know how to de-mine the area. The more I get into it, the deeper my admiration for these people gets. I'm hoping to go out to Cambodia myself.'
'The fact that we're selling these mines to third world countries I think is despicable,' she adds. 'I'm very, very critical of the powers that be, but I think it's very important to appreciate the gifts of life.'
Her concert at Jersey Opera House will be the last one of her Rainbow Tour.
'I've tried to make a rainbow of songs,' she says. 'I do sing songs to honour the planet. Some Woody Guthrie, some Bob Dylan, some Native American chants.'
'What I've been doing in the second half is I've been asking people to request songs in the interval. I change my programme every night. As an artist I try not only to touch their minds, but their hearts.'
Julie Felix performs at Jersey Opera House on 2 November 2005.

www.thisisjersey.com

 

Strummer in the city as First Lady of Folk keeps the peace

CARRIE MITCHELL

September 18th 2005

 

Review by Roger Green
Wednesday 24 August 2005

Doors closed for the visit of legend Julie

They were turning people away minutes after the doors of Arundel Cricket Club’s pavilion opened, so great was the demand for seats to see a musician who genuinely deserves the accolade “legendary”.
   It was tough on the many arriving too late, but for those of us fortunate enough to be among the 100-strong audience, this was a memorable night.
  Outside, a downpour rattled the pavilion’s roof, so Julie’s choice of her opening song, Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, seemed all the more appropriate.  It was sung with the fire and passion which marked out the protest movements of the 1960s and prepared us for an evening when we were constantly reminded that themes of war, peace and looking after the environment are as urgent as ever.
  Julie, who last year celebrated 40 years since her first record was released, was scathing in her criticism of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, particularly over the war in Iraq, but encouraged us to look positively at “this beautiful planet”, as well as reacting against the “misguided people running the world”.
  As well as Dylan’s material, she performed songs by Woody Guthrie, Buffy St Marie and Leonard Cohen.  Julie met the latter, she told us, on a Greek Island back in the 60s and lent him her guitar. Within a couple of years the Canadian poet was writing songs too.
  With influences including her father’s Mexican roots and the native American people, much of Julie’s own material celebrates the wonder of the natural world and encourages us to live more in tune with it.
  She sings with the same commitment, enthusiasm and energy which made her one of folk’s leading stars at a time when that galaxy shone with dazzling names.

Julie closed with another Dylan number which perfectly sums up her outlook – Forever Young.
  Willows’ regulars, the South Down Ramblers were joined by other floor singers and musicians around Julie’s sets; and an impressive duo, Kevin Barber and Mark Taylor.  The club meets every Wednesday and has a great atmosphere.

 

Friday July 22, 2005

VETERAN folk artist Julie Felix has embarked on a nationwide “rainbow” tour to celebrate a singing career spanning 40 years, which brings her to the Hardraw Gathering, near Hawes, on Saturday, July 30 (7:30 PM). ALLAN TUNNINGLEY discovers that the passing decades have neither diminished her love of music nor her campaigning zeal.

Julie still has a cause…

When Julie Felix first arrived from California in Britain in 1964, she had plenty of political issues to sing about.

The USA was just becoming embroiled in the Vietnam War and there were highly emotive causes at home to espouse, such as women’s rights, black and gay rights. Forty years on, world peace remains elusive. Despite the end of the Cold War, and human rights issues seem as complex and unsolvable as ever, especially in AIDS and poverty-ravaged Africa.

So why aren’t we singing protest songs?

It’s a question that puzzles Miss Felix, who believes too few performers are producing politically engaged music.

“The Live 8 concert is an example,” she tells me. “Though it was really good that all these performers took part, most of them just performed their hit songs. They succeeded in raising awareness of poverty in Africa and Third World debt, but I would have preferred the music itself to reflect what the concerns of the world are.”

She admires politically active singers like Geldof, Sting and Bono but admits no one really comes close to her supreme hero, Bob Dylan.

“O love to sing Dylan,” says Miss Felix, who has released an entire album of the maestro’s music (Starry Eyed and Laughing). “We are so very fortunate to have such inspirational songs; all this artistry and power to draw from.”

Dylan was already achieving much with his creative powers by the time Miss Felix decided to hitch her way from California to Europe, her Mexican guitar a reassuring companion. She quickly rose to prominence on Britain’s folk scene and became the first artist of the genre to be signed to a major record company (Delta). Guest TV appearances soon led to a regular slot on the satirical Frost Report, where her songs reflected political and social issues of the day. By 1968, she had her own TV series.

Although she has never regained the prominence of her early stardom, in recent years Miss Felix’s career has enjoyed something of a renaissance, albeit limited to the folk scene and her campaigning work (she is a prominent activist against landmines, for example). She still has a superb voice, which can powerfully convey the spirituality and passion of her songs, and shows no sign of retiring from performance.

She says the tour “is going really well” though Miss Felix admits it is “wearing me out a bit”, which is not surprising when you consider she is now 67, though she doesn’t look it. This is probably down to her generally healthy lifestyle and sensible eating habits, coupled with a long-time devotion to yoga.

There have been plenty of devoted followers flocking to see Miss Felix since the “rainbow” tour began in February.

But has the tour gained her new fans from a younger generation?

“My main audience continues to be those who were fans in the Sixties, but I do get new people appreciating my music because of the specialist interests I am involved with, such as the environment and women’s issues.”

When she began the tour back in February, Miss Felix planned both halves of her concert with precision, but found people wanting to hear songs that weren’t included.

Now only the first half is prescribed and the audience get to shape the second.

“It’s nerve-racking but very exciting. The audience really keep me on my toes and I have to work hard sometimes to make sure I get the words right.”

So far the most popular requests have been Early Morning Rain, Hallelujah and Woman.

The 40 th anniversary UK tour coincides with the release of a compilation CD, The Rainbow Collection, described in the sleeve notes by singer-songwriter Steve Harley as a “fine and enchanting collection.”

She is convinced that music has an inherent spirituality and healing power and told me: “I believe in the human spirit and hope my music will help to reinvigorate the same vision we had in the Sixties that music can help to make a better world.”

 

Rochester Square Temple September 4th, 2005

Rochester Square Temple  played host to " the first lady of folk " on Sunday evening September 4th, 2005.
When I initially invited Julie Felix, she was playing a gig at the Maltings in St Albans last April. Her reaction to being invited to play in a spiritualist church was, " Thank you I would love to; it's great to be  invited to play to like minded people." We proved to her how right she was to accept the invitation. As Julie took us on a journey of her vast repertoire of songs spanning 40 years, it became evident why she has remained so popular for four decades. The songs she performed for us were of an international variety taking us across the plains of Mexico and in to the cafes and bars of Cuba.
Many of her songs contain spiritual themes; and, as she asserted " I am still a protest singer",  she demonstrated her deeply felt pacifist views.

The first half of the concert included a song dedicated to the founders of our great Temple `May the presence of the Goddess` from her 2004 album `I walk with Beauty` an album filled with songs for the spirit.

What comes across from being in conversation with Julie Felix is that one is in the company of a lady who walks the walk. She very much lives her spiritual beliefs. Being vegetarian with an understanding and experience of the  afterlife, she stands firmly against violence and war.

Everyone was in fine voice as Julie got us all singing along in the second half. There's no excuse now, guys, for not singing along in services!
A very moving part of the second half was a song dedicated to  our presidents, Maureen and  David: ` Forever Young.` A surprise interaction was made by Jim Collinson's guide dog, Vargo, when Julie was tapping her guitar to a mexican song. Maybe Vargo was reminded of a past life experience?

Julie and her assistant stayed on for a while after the concert to give everyone the chance to buy merchandise, sign autographs, chat with fans, and, photo shots, courtesy of Sunita of Camden New Journal.  

Thanks to all who helped to make this concert a success and to Dave for taking excellent photos that leave CNJ standing.

Final words of Julie after the concert " I have really enjoyed being here ... such beautiful energies, I'd love to come back some time.

Til next time, Julie.

David Manclark

 

RARE CLUB DATE FOR  SIXTIES FOLK ICON

  Thursday August 18, 2005

More than 40 years on, the passion for peace is still burning brightly for 1960’s folk icon, Julie Felix.

Julie, who plays a rare folk club date at the famous Willows Folk Club in Arundel on Wednesday August 24, 2005, is still very much in touch with the underlying beliefs and hopes which characterized the cultural revolution from which she emerged.

She reckons things are coming to a crunch: we all need to decide whether we are prepared to continue to be forced to go to war when we don’t want to and to be controlled by politics and economics or whether to wake up to the fact that we are free, that we are individuals, and that we live on a beautiful planet and that we are free to live beautifully there.

Originally from California, she’s lived in England on and off ever since those early days and considers the UK her home.

“But I am angry at Tony Blair for going to war and I am mad about those policemen that shot that guy in London.

“I am mad at a lot of things that are happening here, things that I see as the Americanisation of Britain.

“But Britain is still a better place to be than America under Bush.”

What’s gone wrong is partly down to media hype, she says. It’s also down to the swing of the pendulum away from the 60’s ideals of freedom and love towards fear and paranoia and materialism.

“I do blame the powers that be for making us live in fear, for wanting us to have things like identity cards.

“And I am frightened that the powers that be are going to use this latest tragedy in London to make us even more scared.

“But so far the British people have reacted in a really mature and sane way in terms of carrying on and not panicking; and, until this fiasco of the shooting, the emergency services were working very well.

“But once you start giving these guys guns, they start to use them. I think it’s scary. I blame the influences of TV and video games…”

All a long cry from the hopes of the 1960’s.

“Folk music in the 1960’s was a soundtrack for the cultural revolution which really did happen.

“And out of that cultural revolution came the civil rights movement, feminism, the anti-racist movement, the ecological movement, all those sorts of ideals.

“I am not saying that they did not exist before, but the 1960’s crystallized them. I get very depressed at a lot of what is happening now.”

But, in a way, it all makes the folk voice more important.” At my age I could throw in the towel, but I think it is important to get out there.

“With so much control of the media, it’s down to the troubadours to get out there and spread the news.”

And the news is that this is a beautiful planet on which we can all live together in peace.

The British folk scene is a bit subdued at the moment, she laments, though there are flashes of hope in the likes of David Grey and Katie Melua: “But it does not yet have the bite of the 1960’s.

“Back in the 1960’s there was a zeitgeist. There were ideas that were universal…”

But Julie for one will continue to fly the flag, and she is delighted to do so in Arundel where she once played many years ago: “I had a friend that lived there.”

And it is also important to support the folk clubs, she says: “In the 60’s when it was all booming, there was a folk club on every corner. It’s very important to keep them from dropping off.

“When young people ask me how to get started in this career, how to get a record contract, I always say go and get yourself a following in a folk club first. It’s a good place for young artists to start.”

• Entrance for Julie’s concert is £7. The Willows Folk Club first opened its doors to the public more than 30 years ago, and in that time has always met every Wednesday at 8pm in the Arundel Cricket Club Pavilion on the A27 next door to the White Swan Hotel (formerly the Arundel Lodge Hotel).

• For more information about the club, call 07790 511054 or log on to their wbsite at www.willowsfolkclub.org

 

Donovan's Beat Café concert, Oxford, 9 June 2005

The packed house at Donovan's Beat Café concert in Oxford, 9 June 2005, got a surprise when Julie Felix appeared, unannounced and unadvertised, to sing Universal Soldier on stage with Donovan.

Photos Jane Quinn

Review at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/music/2005/06/donovan.shtml

 

FROM HYDE PARK TO SHREWSBURY MUSIC HALL

Cast your minds back... back.... back... it's 1974, Hippies are not
imitation travellers, they are people with long hair, long beards, and even
longer dresses.. It's the Bob Dylan, Donovan, Mammas and Pappas era,
protests and rebellion against the establishment... Folk clubs and folk
singers....

Here we are in Hackney, 2 lads, 18 and 23, Both called Dave.. broke, not
working, Not liking the way the world is going, and swearing never to grow
up, cos Growed ups are ruining our planet... Hair down to their waists...
Peace, love and chilling out abound. They are reading the Hackney Gazette.

'Frout Man' Says the Older Dave, 'Look at this man! We gotta do it!' Young
Dave looks, there in the paper is an article saying that Julie Felix will be
appearing at a concert in Hyde Park. Cool! Says young Dave. After all, one
third of their record collection is Julie Felix! (Actually, they own an old
record player and 3 albums, Led Zepplin 1, The best of Cream, and Julie
Felix - Changes, with the latter being their fave.)

The following Saturday, being skint, as usual, the lads set off for Hyde
park, on foot (and its a bloody long walk from Hackney). They left at 4am
cos they wanted a good spot in front of the stage. They arrived, and picked
a spot right in the front, and crashed out for an hour or so. Then a biiig
Limo arrived! 'Awww man' says Big dave, 'she sold out to the establishment'.
The door opened, and out came a vision in jeans and tee shirt, long black
hair flowing free clutching a guitar! It was SHE! 'No she aint!' Says Young
Dave, eyes out on stalks, following the vision that he could not believe was
actually there before him with his adoring gaze. Onto the stage and a
fantastic set. Our heroes had only gone to the concert for her, so as she
left the stage, they ran after her, hoping to speak to her and get her
autograph. She dived into the limo and drove off, leaving two disappointed
lads, who set off on foot back to their pad in Hackney, buzzing with seeing
HER live!.......

Years went by, The lads went their separate ways, Old Dave eventually landed
up living in Leeds, Young Dave married a few times, cut his hair, became
almost a 'straight' and bred a few kids along the way. He also became
disabled and was living in Shrewsbury.

'Look at this' said Mrs Young Dave one day, 'That folk singer from years ago
is on in the music hall, Julie Felix. Want to go?' 'Not Many!!!' Said young
Dave as memories came flooding back! The hair may have gone, the Afghan
coat, love beads and Loons with 25" flares may well have been consigned to
history, but the inner hippie and love of HER never died. So tickets were
duly booked, Shrewsbury music hall, Wheelchair space, right at the front.

Tonight, the show was on, Julie came onstage, the years rolled away! Young
Dave was transfixed, In Love all over again.. But what's this? She is
actually talking to the audience, chatting away about the planet, and the
abuse it is suffering at the hands of the so called intelligent species..
and that voice.. Young (Well actually not so young now) Dave is in heaven,
He may be a 50 year old bald guy in a wheelchair now, but for that moment,
he is 18 again, with long hair, long beard, and tears streaming down his
face! And Julie? She is STILL Julie, timeless, wonderful, and above all, at
this moment, the most fantastic person on earth!

Now the above story had been told to one of Julie's crew, who it seems,
mentioned it to HER during the interval. This time, there was no long walk
home, there was no Limo for HER to leap into, although, to be fair, there
would also be no hippie lads chasing her back to her car!

During the second half, SHE sang young Dave's, fave song, and actually
looked directly at him and bowed at him at the end of it! Not only that, she
came out front afterwards, and ACTUALLY SPOKE to people, especially Young
Dave, who was asked if he would mind having a pic taken with Julie for her
website and things. WOULD HE MIND!!!!! It was a meeting he had waited 31
years for! This time, instead of walking back home for miles, he floated
back on a cloud. What a fantastic night! Something he will remember forever.

On Arriving home, he instantly phoned Old Dave in Leeds.

'allo' Says Old Dave
'allo mate! You know it sometimes takes me a while to do things?'
'Yup, You are a bit slow sometimes'
'Well this time it took me 31 years'
'What did?'
'Remember why we walked to Hyde Park in 74?'
'Oh yeah man, we went to see Julie Felix but she ran away so we didn't get
to meet her and declare undying love and get her autograph'
'Well, Like I said, it took 31 years, But I did all the above, and she has
autographed a flyer to you, its going in the post today'

There followed an hour or so of reminiscences and jealousy from Old Dave....

That was a night to remember, and to treasure! Thank you Julie, Seeing you
there Live was fantastic, but actually meeting you was better than winning
the lottery! I still cannot believe it all happened! One of your team is
sending me a pic she took of us, but I have attached one taken by the dear
lady wife, (She only got one unfortunately). Again, thank you so much for
that memorable night!

Dave Burns
3 March 2005
Shrewsbury

Pictures here

 

Julie Felix at Shrewsbury Music Hall

I must confess that I didn't know a great deal about Julie Felix prior to attending her concert at Shrewsbury Music Hall last night.

For one thing, I had never realised she was such a good guitarist,  For another, I had never realised she was such a good singer.  And for another, I had never realised she was such a warm, humourous and passionate performer.

She sang of fire and water and earth and air.  She told touching stories and, yes, she got political.

She played Mexican music and the music of the native Americans - and there were classic songs by Buffy Sainte Marie, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton.

Throughout she radiated love, hope, energy and optimism in an evening of high
emotion and inspiration. She won herself another fan.
         
Phil Gillam
The Shropshire Star: 4 March 2005
http://www.shropshirestar.com

 

LIVING TRADITION MAGAZINE

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

How it’s high time that the “British Joan Baez” got her rightful place on
the British Folk Circuit
by Dai Woosnam

Let’s start by nailing a lie.The “thinking man’s crumpet” in the
hedonistic Sixties was NEVER Joan Bakewell.

“Never”? Yes, I think never. Okay, let me qualify that. Certainly
20-year old young blades like me in 1967 had only one brainy television
goddess in our daytime –and emphatically NIGHTTIME - fantasies. And it
wasn’t Stockport’s Gift to all those older, academic “lecturer/lecher
types”: guys who found – and still find – Joan to be a stunning beauty.

No, our cerebral turn-on indeed was that “Older Woman type, but -  vitally -
was a full five years younger than Joan, and thus was still in her twenties. This was important, as we could relate to her better. And whereas Ms Bakewell was to achieve fame really on a minority channel (BBC2), our “femme fatale” had really cracked it on mainstream BBC1, and become a household name up and down the UK.

And to this day, that fame still lives on. When my 79 year-old neighbour
asked me one afternoon where I was driving off to, I told him I was off to
have a  long chat with someone I was going to do a profile on. Although he
was never a Folkie, I just knew if I mentioned her name, it would bring
instant recognition. And it did. “Ah you’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!” was his quick-as-a-flash response.

And “long chat” is just what it proved. We talked, one-to-one, into the
wee small hours. And who is this woman? I guess my neighbour just gave the game away as to exactly who it was that first popularised the Tom
Paxton song in Britain. Let me give you another clue. She is not from
these shores, but long ago made Britain her home. Rickmansworth, to be
exact.

Still no wiser? Here is a third clue. This is a woman who on that memorable day of August 31st, 1969, performed to over 100,000 people at Wootton  - near Ryde - Isle of Wight. Included in the VIP section of the audience were Messrs Lennon, Harrison, Starr and Ms Yoko Ono! That evening, sharing the bill with her, were Ritchie Havens, Tom Paxton and  - of course – Bob Dylan and the Band.

And today, even though she is now astonishingly in her 67th year, she is
till strutting her stuff. And what is really remarkable is that she is rolling back the years. Singing with real strength and passion, and playing her guitar with more guile than I ever remembered. A real trouper. A woman with a real HEART, and surprisingly totally lacking in bitterness.

“Surprisingly”, because she has every right to be bitter. For she is a woman on whom the UK Folk Scene has turned its back (with a few notable exceptions): they have ostracised her for being too “successful”. But it wasn’t HER fault that the British Public embraced her like they did. And here is a fourth clue: if she had not got stuck in a slow lift with Britain’s most famous young TV personality of the day, she’s be doing the Folk Circuit now and playing every Folk Festival. For the fact is, that she was born a Folkie: not so much a case of her BUYING the Folk T-shirt, as her WEAVING it herself!   So trust me: this is no MOR artiste. his is the real (Folk) McCoy.   I submit that she is as authentically “Folk”, as almost anyone you want to name.

Born in Santa Barbara, California in 1938. Dad a Mexican mariachi musician,
Mum descended from good Welsh stock, and herself able to inculcate Welsh
folk legends into her baby girl. The babe would sleep on the sofa as dad and his mates practised their mariachi music in the adjacent room. She took in folk music as she slept. As she says: “Music has always been an integral part of my life. Like breathing, it happens whether I am thinking about it or not. When I came into this world, my father was a working musician. In our home, he would often be playing the piano, the guitar, or the accordion”.

Then as a girl, she got her first guitar. Dad taught her to play it. And then after spending her early youth playing the coffee bars and hootenannies, she embarked for Europe in 1962. She hitched her way through Europe, carrying a duffel bag and the Mexican guitar that had been given her by her father. She hung around with the artistic set (including a spell on a Mediterranean island with the young Leonard Cohen) and then arrives in England in 1964.

Now, note that date of “1964”.  It was a key year for the Decca record
label. They had spent the previous one in deep remorse as Beatlemania
took hold. After all, Decca was the organisation which had turned down the
Fab Four! They were thus the subject of scorn for what the whole of Britain had concluded was a grave lack of business nous. So it was vital that 1964 be the year when they put matters right and signed a new artiste of real quality. And so they signed her, and she became the first solo folk artist to be signed by a major British record company. Her first album and single ('Someday Soon') were released soon after, and she then immediately appears on the Eamonn Andrews TV show, and is asked back the following week by popular demand.

The next year sees her career really take off. The Establishment’s newspaper, The Times, names her: “Britain's First Lady of Folk”. She visits Lebanon, Jordan and East Africa on behalf of Christian Aid, returning to London to give her first solo concert. And what a place to give it in!  It is often claimed that she was the first British-based folk singer to fill the Royal Albert HaIl!

And then we come to 1966. The bloke she met in the slow lift remembered her and came calling. David Frost. She becomes the resident singer on the
amazingly popular 'Frost Report', and quickly becomes a household name.      
And I guess, dear Reader, if you’ve not got her name by now, then you never will get it. Julie Felix, of course. The woman some of us called the
“British Joan Baez”, often not knowing that she was an American citizen.

1968 was the start of her period of real stardom. Julie is given her own TV series of 17 shows. Directed by Stanley Dorfmann, this is the first colour series produced by the BBC, and is sold to virtually every country in the world including the USSR. Guests include Spike Milligan, Richard Harris, Leonard Cohen, Dusty Springfield, Donovan, and Jimmy Page. And then, 969, and the high-water mark (fame-wise) with that Isle of Wight Festival that I alluded to earlier.

And I think, even right back then, the die was cast. Julie could fill big oncert halls not just here but in other parts of the world too: for instance, she spoke movingly to me about performing to 27,000 people in a festival in New Zealand. So the “scene was set” inasmuch as, from way back then, her career had already moved in such a way that she never really had a hope in hell of becoming a regular performer on the UK Folk Club/Folk Festival circuit.

But it wasn’t that she cold-shouldered the British Folk Scene. It is just that your average folk club figured that she was a superstar who would command a fee way in excess of their “usual”, and so did not bother to contact her or her agent. So she continued to play the big halls, and became wrongly identified as a mainstream performer. And that signal was picked up on, by most UK Folk Festivals too. So they too sat on their hands. Indeed, even the great Ken Woollard at Cambridge Folk Festival never came calling. And that was a crying shame, for someone with the eclectic tastes of Ken. If ever a performer was MADE for Cambridge, then it was Julie. But what will be, will be.

But remember, this was a woman who DID originally play the UK Folk Circuit,
and was even the “first ever guest” at certain clubs. Some, like Colchester Folk Club, commendably remember this and have asked her back to perform again to mark their 41st Anniversary at the end of March, 2005. But when you look at her gig diary, it tends in the main to be Arts Centres and Town Halls rather than Folk Clubs and Folk Festivals. And that is a shame: a hame on the Folk Circuit. Yet, if she is a bit sore at this neglect, she surprisingly does not show it.

Some might say “look Dai, why do you act surprised that she isn’t bitter?   
Why should you expect her to be? Surely she must have earned a fortune in
her heyday?”

Yes, perhaps so. But the big paydays are a thing of the past now, and she
asks a fee more modest than that of at least twenty UK folk stars I can
think of. And yet the UK Thought Police (Folk Branch) continue to consider her as non-kosher. How DARE they!

I’ll tell you who ain’t kosher. It is the UK Thought Police! Only once in our very long and delightful conversation did Julie ask me to please switch off the tape recorder for a minute. It was to make a heartfelt comment.

I will not break the ethical code of journalism by failing to keep confidential what she asked to remain “confidential”. So there will be no“naming of names” here. So let me talk in loose terms instead. Let me call it a Folk Organisation. What that “organisation” is, could be one of several things: it could be a booking agency, a PR company, it could be a print magazine like TLT, it could be a radio programme, or an online venture, or indeed a whole radio station. And any of half-a-dozen other possibilities. (So Julie, I have respected your confidence and have not pinpointed the particular blackguards.)

And, re that organisation: she tells it like this. “I send them CDs, info regarding my gigs, yet they always ignore me.” Well, more fool them, Julie. And shame on them and their smug little world of scratching each others’ backs. You can hold your head up high, woman: I’d sooner you sing for my life than any of them.

And boy, can she sing! She sings as well now as in her heyday. Some nicely varied stuff: some decent self-penned material, but lots of the ace songs of her contemporaries. How nice to hear her sing that trenchant Buffy Sainte Marie song “Now That The Buffalo’s Gone”. (I remarked to her that she should juxtapose it with an even greater song by the same writer: the wonderful “My Country Tis Of Thy People You’re Dying”.) And she includes some fine Leonard Cohen numbers like “Hallelujah” and “Bird on the Wire”, some Spanish language traditional songs, some Woody Guthrie, and of course some Dylan (this last to be expected seeing as she relatively recently released a double album of Dylan numbers).

Not only she does she SOUND like she did nearly 40 years ago, she (weirdly)
LOOKS like she did too. No, NOT what you think! She does not have the
“Joan Rivers look” of obvious cosmetic surgery. Close-up, you can see signs that the years are staking a claim on her: and this most natural of women would seem to be the last person imaginable to go in for cosmetic subterfuge. But that absence of an obvious face-lift, just adds to her appeal. (Not that she even needs such surgery: she could, as it is, pass for at least a dozen years younger. Perhaps even more years, when you see
that she has kept the trim figure of her youth.) I promise you that it ain’t just male menopausal types like me who find her attractive: men half my age do too!   Not to forget two sapphist friends of mine who regard her as nothing less than an ICON.

But were Julie to read that last paragraph, she’d doubtless berate me. She’d tell me to talk about more IMPORTANT matters, like the Iraq War (her views on the Bush regime are decidedly vehement!), her long study of alternative medicine, her decidedly thoughtful insights into astrology. Not to mention her other work for anti-landmines and breast cancer charities. And she’d be right to scold me.

So let me finish this short profile by talking about what I consider to be a
“most important matter”. I require all those people reading this, who book artistes for their local folk clubs and folk festivals, to PLEASE let the scales fall from their eyes. Book this woman for next year NOW. She is a national treasure. And she is still at the top of her game.

Dai Woosnam
The Living Tradition
November 23rd, 2004.

Veteran folk music writer Dai Woosnam was born in Wales in 1947, and has written for various publications down the years. Since 1993 (the year it was first published), he has written for The Living Tradition, Britain's leading print magazine on the subject of British and Irish traditional music. His regular column DAIGRESSING is widely acknowledged to be the most thoughtful and provocative on the Scene today. He now lives on the East Coast of England. ...'

 

The Rainbow Collection by Julie Felix

(Track Records: TRA 1048)

Let us start this review with a quiz question. Name me the 20th century
American singer who was a legend in a European country, whilst being unknown in her own?

No, Josephine Baker is NOT the correct answer! Why not? Well because her
initial fame was more based on her exotic (or should that be erotic?) dancing, than her singing.

Mind you, Julie Felix would have made a heck of a fine erotic dancer in her
prime: come to think of it, she STILL has more sex appeal than most women
half her age!

But the question is not whether she can still hack it on the catwalk: rather it is whether she can still hack it in the recording studio? (For, she is indeed, the answer to my quiz question.)

And on the strength of three hearings of this album, I can say an emphatic
yes. Though that said, not much of this album has been recorded POST the Millennium: most of the tracks seem to have been cut in 1999, and some
actually date from the late 70s.

The album has been brought out to celebrate Julie¹s 40 years as a professional performer. It is an interesting mix of material, containing  as it does a Cohen, some Dylan, some self-penned, some Spanish language songs and some traditional. (And on the subject of the last-mentioned: I note that Julie calls The Wild Mountain Thyme  traditional. Well, Julie, the TUNE may be, but the words are by Francis McPeake. Written in the mid-Fifties as I recall.)

I liked so much of this album.  Julie's voice has lost nothing down the years, and here she has surrounded herself with some tasty musicians. I very much liked Darren Spicer's lead acoustic guitar and Noreen Brokke's authoritative piano playing.

Indeed Noreen's inspired playing on Hallelujah helped make it the best track on the album. Though that said, Julie's impassioned delivery of Leonard Cohen's remarkable lyric certainly helped! And re those lyrics: I am uncertain whether that song is 99% mumbo jumbo or whether I need drop an acid tab to find the real meaning, that lies just beneath the surface, as with so many of Cohen's songs. But certainly there is something truly MESMERISING about that song, and Julie and her mate Noreen had me in a trance.

Nice to hear someone singing a few songs in Spanish rather than Spanish:
that is to say that her Spanish is clearly the real thing.

And what a good choir the Avalonian Free State Choir are! I would happily
buy an album of their work. They join her for the last two tracks.

If you are reading this outside the UK, do yourself a favour. Buy the album. You will thus encounter the 'British' Joan Baez (though in truth she is from Santa Barbara, California!)  In Britain though, I need make no such request: here, this woman is a household name.

Buy it from www.trackrecords.co.uk
Artiste's website: www.juliefelix.com
Contact management: remarkablerecords@btinternet.com

Dai Woosnam
January 2005
Grimsby, England
http://www.icogitate.com/~celticfolkmusic/fr-JulieFelix.htm


Track List:
1. Masters Of War (Dylan)  4.16
2. Plane Wreck at Los Gatos  (W. Guthrie)  4.44
3. The Ballad Of Doris Kathryn Rodehaver (Felix)  4.30
4. I Miss You (Felix)  3.20
5. Half A Moon  (Felix)  4.40
6. Mr Tambourine Man  (Dylan)  6.17
7. Woman  (Felix) 4.17
8. I Shall Be Released (Dylan)  4.03
9. In Paris (Felix) 5.14
10. Hi Lily Hi Lo (Kaper Deutsch)  0.54
11. Las Mananitas  (Trad) 2.34
12. La Barert De Oro  (Abundio Martinez)  2.27
13. Children Of Abraham (Felix) 3.59
14. Hallelujah (Cohen) 5.59
15. Hard Rain  (Dylan)  6.48
16. Wild Mountain Thyme  (Trad)  3.20
17. The Irish Farewell  (Trad)  3.05

 

December 2004

JULIE FELIX
The Rainbow Collection

TRACK TRA 1048
Folk gems collected:

Handpicked by the folk star herself, Felix enchants her traditional way through a host of highlights drawn mostly from the last ten years, with a few '77 recordings thrown in for good measure.

The California-born soloist first emerged in '64 alongside Dylan et al, appearing at the legendary IOW festival of '69 and of course that Top 20 appearance with the Mickie Most-produced El Condor Pasa.  After a sabbatical back in California, Felix returned to the UK in the late 80's, along with a return to music, new albums and new fire.  With performances here from John Paul Jones, Danny Thomson and Kiki Dee, the quality of what is essentially a contemporary protest album is undeniable.  Preaching to the converted, maybe, but Plane Wreck at Los Gatos, Hard Rain and even the ubiquitous Mr Tambourine Man are always worth the time, and Julie Felix still delivers them better than most.

Joe Shooman

 

The Rainbow Collection

KEVIN'S CELTIC PAGES will feature a review of The Rainbow Collection in Mid-January 2005.
http://www.icogitate.com/~celticfolkmusic/

 

Round Town News

local newspaper from Benidorm, Spain, dated 13 October 2004:
http://www.roundtownnews.com/articles.asp?ID=1959&fecha_pub=13/10/2004 

 

Julie...a child of the 60s who keeps the dream alive

Worcester
Evening News
Wednesday 30 June 2004

Mike Pryce meets a minstrel from that lost age of energy and idealism

FOR some reason, I always thought of Julie Felix as the British Joan Baez, which was a bit daft really considering she was born in Santa Barbara, California.
It was probably the long black hair, the acoustic guitar and the folk songs that did it.  Also Julie was on British TV so often during the 1960s and seemed so associated with the whole Kings Road scene, it was difficult to appreciate she hadn¹t grown up here.
But she hadn't, and had it not been for a chance encounter in a lift with the young David Frost in 1964, she might have carried on hitch-hiking round the world and become a big name in Australia or Iceland or wherever.
I caught up with her in Spain recently - via the telephone I hasten to add - to expand on the news Julie will be singing in Worcester on Sunday July 4.
That's American Independence Day in case you hadn¹t twigged and it's wholly appropriate, given her history, that the Evening With Julie Felix is sub-titled Oxfam's Arms Trade Treaty Conference.
It also comes as no surprise to learn the lady does not see eye-to-eye with the current American administration.
Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney are just the sort of folk she would happily have demonstrated against in the Sixties and still hasn't got much of a good word for them now.
'Where do I start?' she laughed.  'America has a president it didn't vote for and look at the damage he's doing.  He has a powerful coterie of neo-conservative voices among his close advisers and their views are probably diametrically opposed to almost everything I believe in.'
 
Her formative years were spent on the American folk scene among the likes of Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Leonard Cohen, so it's not difficult to see where she's been coming from all this time.
In suitably romantic fashion, packing a duffel bag with a few belongings and carrying a Mexican guitar her father had given her, Julie set off to see the world in 1964.
She hitchhiked first to New York and then over to Europe, before ending up in London.
'I was staying with a friend in a flat on the Kings Road,' said Julie,'sleeping on the floor.  It was an apartment block with a very slow lift and one day I got in to go down and already in the lift was David Frost, who had a place on the fifth floor above us.
'Going down we got talking and I said I'd just cut a demo for Decca.  He heard it and said he'd get back.'

The result was a residency for her on the new Frost programme, The Frost Report.
'Up until then, on things like That Was The Week That Was, they'd used a jazz singer - Millicent Martin - and they were looking for something different.'
It caught the flavour of the day and it wasn't long before The Times was calling her Britain's First Lady of Folk - so it wasn¹t just me who was confused by her origins.
To wheel out a cliché, Julie Felix soon became a household name over here.
She took part in the celebration of Westminster Abbey's 900th anniversary, topped the bill at London¹s Saville Theatre with Georgie Fame and, in 1968, was given her own television series of 17 shows, the first to be produced in colour by the BBC.

In 1969, Julie was one of the 'primary artists' at the legendary Isle of Wight Festival where Bob Dylan made his comeback.
In 1971, during the height of the Vietnam War, she sang to a record-breaking 27,000 people at New Zealand¹s Western Springs urging the Kiwis not to begin conscription.
Her chart career in England slowed in the late Seventies and she moved to Norway for a while before going back to California and taking a break from the music world altogether.
However, in the late Eighties, Julie took part in a peace march through Central America and it inspired her to start singing again.
She moved back to England and, from her base in Hertfordshire, undertook a series of projects which included the first New Age Folk Club for budding musicians and poets, and tours and pilgrimages to sacred sites throughout Britain.

She also sang in aid of refugees, gay rights, women¹s causes and the peace movement.
'I think people should tap into the spirit of the Sixties,' she said.  'We need to revisit the vitality and energy of those years because we are faced with many of the same challenges today.
'We must not let corporate greed dampen our vision.'
Julie Felix is now in her mid-60s with a lot of memories to recount and a lot of songs to sing.  A hark-back to the days when we all sat cross-legged on the grass.
'When folk ask me where I come from, I say I am a citizen of the Planet Earth,' said the lady from Santa Barbara, lately Rickmansworth, Herts.
'We all are.'

Mike Pryce
www.thisisworcester.co.uk 

 

Isle of Wight Rock

Julie Felix, The Winter Gardens, Ventnor

Saturday, October 18, 2003

Julie Felix back on the IOW

One evening back in September, riding in the back of one of Singapore's Yellow Top cabs, my wife kicked me in the ankle. Why? I was singing "Mommas taking us to the Zoo". Not due to any particular reminiscences of the 60s, but I thought it appropriate as were off to the Night Safari at the local zoo.(Well worth a visit if you are out there). Imagine my surprise when I opened the County Press on our return and saw that Julie Felix was appearing on the Island. Fate had dictated that I should go!

This was to be a real trip down memory lane for me as the venue was Ventnor's Winter Gardens and the last event I went to there was one of Mick Wray's wrestling matches in the early 70's.

Julie's appearance was part of her Ruby Tour, celebrating 40 years as a performing artist, and was being filmed for a DVD to be released in the near future. It's good to see that after all this time she is still the Queen of Protest. Her views may have matured but they have certainly not mellowed and her performance was as powerful as ever. I had not realized before what a skilled guitarist she is.

Audience participation was a feature of the show and she even got us going in the 1st half by getting us to sing "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" cleverly woven into her rendition of "Children of Abraham". Memories of The Sloop came flooding back ("Take your glasses back to the bar please") and it seemed like time had stood still - then I realized the auditorium clock was stuck at 3.51!

Reminding us of her last appearance on the Island at the '69 festival, she thrilled the audience with songs old and new, original material alongside songs by Dylan, Cohen, and others. Yes, she did sing "Zoo" but I sensed that she was a little embarrassed by it!

Fans had a chance meet Julie at the end of the show and have their CDs and pictures autographed. It was a great evening and I am surprised that more people didn't turn out to see this legend of the 60's/70's but this is the Isle of Wight.

Julie's website www.juliefelix.com is well worth looking at.

Bob Huxtable, Isle of Wight Rock

 

JULIE FELIX - EYE THEATRE

A Review By Glynis Brown
Diss Express Newspaper
Friday 19 March 2004

JULIE Felix, a performer of exceptional musical talent and commitment, played to a capacity audience at the Eye Theatre on Saturday 13 March.
I would have been very happy to listen to her play guitar all evening, an instrument she was taught to play by her inspirational late-father and one with which she was clearly at one. She has very strong views and also the courage of her convictions to voice them not only through her songs but in her actions, a truly thought-provoking and amazing person.
Singing with real passion, her mixture of self-penned songs and those of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and others had the audience completely in thrall. So much more than a folk singer, had she asked her audience to take up a placard and march with her in support of peace and harmony, I believe we all would have done so, such is her charisma.
I certainly left with questions on my mind. Like me, most of our politicians were teenagers when protest songs peaked in the 1960s and early 1970s. We were all singing them and advocating world peace, so why is there still so much hatred and war?
According to Ms Felix, paraphrasing the classic Dylan song, the answer, my friend, is not 'blowin' in the mind, the answer is up to you and me.'
If you get the chance to catch this tour at one of its other venues, then do not miss it.
A timely reminder that we are losing the plot and if we don't get our act together soon a very hard rain is gonna fall.

 

FOOTLIGHTS REVIEW

Julie Felix
Saturday 7 February 2004
By Mary Aitchison

The 2004 season at Footlights, West Chiltington Village Hall, opened to a full house on Saturday, 7th February. Hardly surprising, for the star of the evening was legendary folk singer, Julie Felix, performing as part of her Ruby Tour, celebrating no less than 40 years as a performer and recording artist.I must report that far from showing the years, (except in experience and expertise), her act was better than ever! Starting with The World goes Round and Round which had the audience reeling, she then sang a song that struck a chord with the many past middle-age listeners, Not enough Time.This was followed by a Spanish song, learnt from her Mexican musician father, with rhythms and high register notes which sent shivers down the spine. Next, Freedom is a Woman was followed by a duet with the audience, (who were in a singing mood), in which they sang War no More, overlaid by her Children of Abraham, an experience that was enjoyed by all.It was a well-balanced programme with favourites like Woman, Needle of Death, and the Cuban song, Slave's Lament, with its exciting rhythm of hands drumming and stirring range of notes. It was not necessary to understand the language when her voice carried such depths of feeling.After the break, a sparkling Julie returned to sing Nuclear Free, Half a Moon, and Child of the Universe. There was the title song of a recent CD. Branches in the Mist, the lovely I walk in Beauty and the reassuring How Could Anyone Tell You (you were less than beautiful?).Never say of Julie Felix, "Oh, I've heard her before!" She is different every time, going from strength to inner strength. On Saturday, she too was enjoying every moment, and it showed. Old favourites like Someday Soon, Last Thing on my Mind, Blowin' in the Wind, and Lady With A Braid (Going Home's A Lonely Road) brought the concert to a reluctant end.As an introduction to each half Jerry Page sang his own justifiably popular songs, accompanied by young and talented musicians Tim Cotterell and Kev Walker. A wonderful start to the new season.

On March 6th. 2004 Footlights will present the legendary Hank Wangford & the Lost Cowboys. For details call 01798 812661, or the web www.footlights.freeuk.com or email footlights@freeuk.com

 

JULIE FELIX - I WALK WITH BEAUTY - Remarkable Records

I can't think of many artists who could dedicate an album to 'Mother Earth,
Her Power, Her Majesty and Her Magnificent Beauty', and not sound a wee bit pretentious, Julie Felix is one of the few who can. And it's not just a case
of longetivity earning her the right to be pretentious I Walk With Beauty is
one of the least pretentious yet most moving pieces of music you'll hear.
Many artists have had just as long a career as Felix without moving an inch
from where they started but she has gathered together all her experiences
and beliefs and poured them into this album. However, if you can put aside
that heritage and just listen to I Walk with Beauty in isolation, it is a
vibrant and lively set of songs from a folk singer at the peak of her
powers. Peace Is A River has a simple and clear message, one that comes from Julie Felix's heart. The overriding philosophy of I Walk with Beauty is hope and optimism, she even manages to make Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah sound cheery. This is a serious, honest and clear-eyed view of the world today. It is a sad indictment that music as stunning as this has to be sought out. I Walk With Beauty is only available from www.juliefelix.com. In a more
open-minded world it would be celebrated as a major piece of work. But a
thing of beauty is a joy forever and nowhere is that more true than here.

Michael Mee
Editor
The Hawick News

 

  September 2003

Singer still inspired by Sixties influences

ONE of those artists who enjoyed considerable fame early in life and refocused their priorities to enjoy a long and productive career, folk singer Julie Felix celebrates 40 years in music when she visits Eden Court Theatre on Wednesday 17-9-03, as part of her self-styled "Ruby Tour", writes
Kenny Mathieson.

The California-born singer has been resident in Britain since the mid-60s when she first came to prominence in one of folk music's periodic "booms", achieving national fame as the resident singer in David Frost's popular TV show "The Frost Report" and it was only a matter of time before she had her own television series.

Her striking Latin looks and lovely singing voice allowed her to achieve iconic status and her passionately-held political and humanitarian views chimed with the "peace and love" ethos of the times.

While she acknowledges that the dreams of the era have not come to fruition, the singer still retains her faith in that vision. She has just completed a new album, "I Walk With Beauty", which reaffirms her principles.
" It's a combination of songs for peace and healing which is the other side of the coin from my last album, a record of Bob Dylan songs called
" Starry-Eyed and Laughing", which maybe reflected more of the protest side of my work.
" Both are very important to me, and I try to weave the political songs and the spiritual songs together. We are living in times when we have to be politically aware. We can't let politicians ruin the planet. I do workshops in which I bring together music and healing, and this is an
album I have wanted to do for a long time."

That concern with political, social and humanitarian issues runs throughout her career. As early as 1965, she visited Lebanon, Jordan and East Africa as a humanitarian ambassador for Christian Aid, and she has spoken out strongly against the wars and violence in the Middle East, including a new song about the conflicts, "Children of Abraham", which will feature on the forthcoming album.

" It was always a big concern in my music and my life but I think it has grown deeper and more complex over the years," she declared. "I've always been involved in social issues, and I think in some ways the 1960's was a rehearsal for what is happening now. This is the crunch time, and we have to harness the positive energy that is out there, and get things right."

While the tour will celebrate four decades in music, she did take a break away from it in the 1980's when she lived for a time in Norway.
" It was a combination of things," she explained. "Folk music was in a bit of decline at that point and there were some personal changes going on in my life as well. The dreams of the '60s seemed to have gone out of the window, and I just need to regroup and refuel. I got involved in things like yoga and healing, trying to find inner peace.
" What brought me back to singing and performing was a peace march in Central America. It was at the time that Reagan was training the Contra army in Honduras, and the death squads were all around. I suddenly felt that there was a real reason to sing again, and that got me kick-started, not only on the political level, but on the spiritual and healing level too. I think the arts need to be more and more involved in the culture of our time."

Julie will be performing solo on her tour, a setting which she feels gives her the most immediate contact with her audience.
" I find that there is a more intense exchange with the audience when I'm working solo," she commented. "I like to work with musicians, but I find just guitar the most satisfying thing for me.
" I plan to make this show a little bit more biographical and talk about some of my experiences throughout my career," she added. "I'll probably pull out some oldies I haven't done for a while. The last tour was based on my album of Bob Dylan songs, and he has been a huge influence on me throughout my career, so I'll definitely weave some of his songs in too.
" I always like to get the audience to sing a few songs with me as well, and in Scotland they're usually pretty good at that!"
Julie recorded some of the tracks for her Dylan album in Orkney and in Galashiels and admits that she has a special relationship with Scotland.
" Orkney is a very special place for me." she revealed. "There is a kind of spirit that comes from the land and the history and the spirituality of the place and I go there quite often.
" I have a special spot in my heart for Scotland and I'm really looking forward to having the chance to do a few dates in a row, rather than just the odd one-off like the gig I did at Hootananny's in Inverness last year."

 

Mansfield Chad

JULIE FELIX MANSFIELD PALACE THEATRE THURSDAY 22 MAY 2003

JULIE Felix certainly likes to speak her mind and her performance at the Mansfield Palace Theatre last Thursday was no exception.
Between belting out Bob Dylan covers and her own work, the Mexican Goddess referred frequently to the "illegal" Iraqi War and the "unscrupulous" George Bush administration - proving her reputation as a protest singer is still very much the case.
Julie appeared at the Palace as part of her Starry Eyed and Laughing Tour, named after her recent album which covers Dylan classics and some of his lesser known tracks.
In an interview with Chad leading up to her appearance, Julie had revealed that it had been her life-long ambition to record a Dylan tribute album and to record it well. If her performance at the Palace was anything to go by, then she has achieved her dream.
Julie performed Dylan numbers in a deeply heartfelt and emotional way, in keeping with Dylan, but also adding her own individual style. And what style! With her waist length jet-black hair, flowing top and beads, Julie looked every inch a child of the sixties, but it was a natural and comfortable style rather than a contrived and controlled look.
And then there's the guitar. This woman certainly knows how to play her instrument. Taught by her father along with some self tuition, Julie has grown up with guitar music - something which was very evident at her show.
Flawless, beautiful music with occasional Mexican influences filled the auditorium and was the perfect accompaniment for her rich, velvety voice - magic!
-Joanne Parkinson

 

SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING

by PAUL DROMEY
APRIL 2003

Back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, Ireland underwent an enormous
renaissance of interest in folk, ballads and traditional music. For the
majority of folk fans living in the then one television channel land outside
of greater Dublin and the North East, The Julie Felix Show provided a vital
link to the international scene, bringing artists such as Leonard Cohen, Tom
Paxton and Donovan into our living rooms; while giving international
perspective to the popularity of Irish exports such as The Dubliners and
The Clancy Brothers.

Julie Felix was then at the very heart of the British folk scene.
Originally from Santa Barbara California, (Mexican father, mother American
of Welsh ancestry), she had made her home in Britain. The Julie Felix Show,
the first colour series produced by the BBC, sold to virtually every country in the world including Russia. Her clear-as-crystal singing, insightful songwriting, idealism and fundamental integrity encapsulated the optimism and hope of a generation.

More than 30 years on, Julie Felix continues to speak and sing out against
inequality, injustice and war. Perhaps her voice needs to be heard now more
than ever.

An entertainer singing a wide spectrum of songs, Julie Felix says.
"But everything I sing about today is about now, not remember the good old
days. That's not to say that I don't sing songs from the past. Dylan's
Masters of War could hardly be more current. I was tagged a political and
protest singer, which is still true. But I believe that my spiritual and
emotional side has come more into focus over the years.

I stopped singing for a number of years during the1980's; went back to
California and got involved in yoga, meditation, healing courses and
astrology - trying to understand the inner as well as the outer landscape.
That and life experience has given me a greater consciousness of blending
the spiritual with the political.

Starry-Eyed and Laughing, Felix's latest CD on Remarkable Records, is a
compelling double 20 track collection of Bob Dylan songs, spanning his
career. The Dylan/Felix connections go way back, and she participated in
Dylan's celebrated 1969 Isle of Wight Festival comeback concert. Album
guests include Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick, John Renbourn, Kiki Dee and
Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones.

I've always wanted to do a Dylan album and, for one reason or another, it's
always eluded me until now. It took me a long time to harness such a huge
project, to select and distill from such a wealth of material. The great
thing about it taking so long is that now I have complete artistic license,
something I wouldn't have had earlier in my career. That was a great,
liberating feeling; especially working with Mickie Most, who, though
best-known as a commercial hit-maker, is a producer who works from feeling
and instinct.

Mickie is a Gemini, Bob Dylan is a Gemini and I'm a Gemini. Geminis (The
Twins) have that duality, the masculine and the feminine, a longing for
wanting to be fulfilled and not being able to get there, trying to find
answers which always seem to elude. It's something that gets stronger and
stronger in Dylan's work as he gets older.

I love the American landscape - it's wildness and power - but I've always
been very critical of the lifestyle there. My feelings have come to a head
with The Bush Administration; an illegally elected President who is
hell-bent on war; whose connections with corrupt businesses, including the
bin Laden family, makes for unbelievable information if you choose to dig
deep enough.

Right now, it's getting to the point where people are starting to think,
starting to care. Since the 1960's, it seems that we've been in a haze.
Everyone is just scrambling to make a living. We're being distracted from
those who are pulling the strings by tabloids, TV, video and everything
else.

But there's an awakening. I see it through the 2million people who marched
for peace in London, the between 15 and 35 million marching in 2,000 cities
all over the world. It's extraordinary and exciting, but we have to remain
vigilant. It's crunch-time and they are trying to pull the wool over our
eyes.

Julie Felix's first Irish tour in over 25 years visits: Colfers, Carrig-on-Bannow on Tuesday April 1st 2003, Market House Arts Centre Monaghan, The Lobby Cork, Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre Naul and Errigle Inn Belfast.

The Scotsman

Felix back to protest at the Masters of War
WHEN the youth of the Sixties marched against war, made peace signs and listened to protest singers denounce violence, they may have believed that when - or if - they grew up, the world would have learned to live together in harmony and bell-bottoms.

Full article

 

Edinburgh News

Julie Felix is still able to tug the heart strings
LOVE, peace, rock ’n’ roll - the sentiments of the 60’s seem a far cry from our reality, where fanatics kill on both sides of the Atlantic and manufactured bands top the radio and TV charts alike.

Full article

 

The Southern Reporter Scotland

JULIE FELIX
STARRY EYED AND LAUGHING

Remarkable Records
RATHER like an actor who is no longer on television, musicians who are not in the mainstream are regarded as Orwellian non-people. The truth is that they are doing what they always did - making a living. So it is with folk legend (a much devalued term but richly deserved here) Julie Felix, and on her latest album she has come up with 20 stunning reworkings of Dylan's finest. The ties between the two go back further... Felix opened for Dylan at the Isle of Wight in 1969.
You'd think by now there was little that could be done to a Bob Dylan song that hadn't been done before. But sometimes the simplest ideas are the most interesting. Julie Felix has stripped the songs down to the bare bones and in the process revealed a whole lot more.
This a very dark album, sombre in places. I never really bought the notion of Dylan with a sense of humour, even an ironic one. He is a cynic rather than a romantic, but Felix has gone even further into the deep recesses of his songs. Mr Tambourine Man is tranformed from the jingle jangle song of 60's flower power into a plaintive, melancholy plea for comfort. Felix has added the patina of her own long career. All those experiences, good and bad, are being recycled to devastating effect.
The guest list also tells an impressive tale of Felix's standing in the business. Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, Kiki Dee and John Renbourn all make telling contributions. But the stars of the album are Felix's as she takes on both the better known Dylan songs - like Subterranean Homesick Blues, I Shall Be Released and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall - alongside some lesser lights. Masters of War becomes a stark, chilling and prescient warning.
Fashions come and go, but a class act is a class act. Remarkable doesn't just apply to the label this album is released on. It can be used for both Julie Felix and Starry-Eyed and Laughing.

MICHAEL MEE
Chief Sub Editor

 

PLYMOUTH EVENING HERALD

Fri 28 June 2002

BACK TO BASICS FOR FOLK LEGEND JULIE
Folk singer Julie Felix has always been attracted to the West Country.
Clare Robinson meets her.

SHE performed to an audience of 28,000 people at the height of the Vietnam War in the sixties and still draws huge crowds at festivals and concert halls. But on Tuesday, folk megastar Julie Felix will be swapping the big stage for a tiny room in a Plymouth pub.
She will be performing an intimate gig at the upstairs room in the Hyde Park in Mutley Plain.
She said, "I love doing smaller clubs. It is so much more relaxed and is like capturing the now, the present, which can never be captured again.
"When it works with the audience, it is the most powerful, addictive experience. It is a kind of charge, like you're plugged into a power lead, and there is a special energy between artist and audience.
"Then I can try out new material. When you play in front of a million people you have to get it just right, in a club if you make a mistake no one seems to mind.
"At the moment, I'm trying out some of the songs on my forthcoming album that is my tribute to Bob Dylan - and remembering all those lyrics isn't easy! It's a very exciting project. I've been singing his songs for 30 years now and so I have asked people visiting my website to choose which they'd like to hear.

"On the album, I've brought in other artists like Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick for Boots of Spanish Leather, and also John Renbourne and Kiki Dee for certain tracks.
"And songs have been recorded in several studios - in Banbury, England, in California, and I went up to the Orkneys to try to achieve the melancholic bleakness of those deeply personal songs like Not Dark Yet and Every Grain of Sand.
"By contrast we've recorded Subteranean Homesick Blues and Chimes of Freedom in a much more open way with a full band."
Dylan may be master of the protest song, but Julie also writes and sings her own material and is as passionate about political and personal issues today as she has ever been.
"The last song I wrote, Children of Abraham, was a plea for East and West to respect each other's religions and prayers in the aftermath of September 11."
She's played concerts for Guitars Against Landmines and wrote Free The Land to raise awareness of the fact that every 20 minutes someone, somewhere is blown up by a landmine.
On a more personal level, as a woman and mother, she cares deeply about women's lives, as tracks on her Branches in the Mist album illustrate. California born and bred, she's always been critical of the U.S. government.
She said: "I'm a child of the 60s, still fighting for individuals and the current regime, in my opinion, is in grave danger of curtailling human rights."
Although Julie returned to the States in the early 80s 'to give it another chance', she says she feels far more attached to England. One corner of the country with which she feels a particular affiliation is the West Country, where she has her biggest UK fan base and makes regular appearances.
Catch her in what must be her most intimate gig in the area for some time. Tickets are £6 in advance, £7.50 on the door and support comes from MadRush.

 

HEREFORD TIMES

FELIX'S STAR QUALITY STILL SHINING STRONG

Ludlow Assembly Rooms lit up when Julie Felix took the stage to celebrate International Women's Day last Saturday night (March 9, 2002)
The first half of the evening gave us the gutsy talents of local folk star Polly Bolton and dulcimer player Sue Harris in a varied programme ranging from mandolin duet instrumentals to a recently formed acapella quartet who invited the audience's suggestion as to a name. 'Staunch Members' seemed to stick once Polly had voiced it (let's hope this is temporary).
There was much to recommend these singers, dancers and musicians but their expertise and enthusiasm was all but eclipsed by the woman with the guitar who followed them after the interval.
Julie Felix's star quality shone out as she filled the hall with the strong and sincere sounds of her song. Glittering in sequins and looking twenty years younger than her age, she showed us all why her popularity is unwavering.
She sang traditional Mexican songs handed down by her father, thrumming on the belly of her guitar and strumming with characteristic precision. She sang a song to celebrate her mother's love of the land where she was born, she sang goddess chants, and she sang with the audience. Something for everyone and certainly something to celebrate.

ALISUN RUSSELL MARCH 14, 2002

 

 

Julie's guitar is weapon against landmine tyranny

SIXTIES ICON: Julie performing in 1965

Picture the scene - the diminutive figure of folk singer/songwriter Julie Felix accompanied on stage by Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones.
In fact the rocker has been talked into playing mandolin alongside Julie on stage in Manchester as part of an anti-landmine campaign concert.

It is not too surprising, because Julie, now aged 63, who shot to fame in the 1960s, has a persuasive sincerity which makes you sit up and listen. The singer who was a leading light alongside the protest singers of the decade is still angry after all these years. And this time she is directing her energies to the campaign championed by Princess Diana before her death.
She became involved after watching a television programme and got in touch with the Manchester based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and little more than a year later is the driving force behind Guitars Against Landmines, a fundraising concert being staged at the Lyric Theatre of The Lowry on Sunday January 27, 2002.
Julie explained: "The more I discovered, the more dedicated I became. It put in focus a great waste of life. These minefields remain long after the wars are over. Countries most affected are the poorest and, within them, the poorest sections of communities are affected. These mines are a great scar on the conscience of the world, and we are allowing it to continue.
"When the idea of a concert first began, I attracted all kinds of people but as the year went on, recording obligations came into play and it began to get difficult. I just needed that first person to commit." That person ended up being Steve Harley. Bill Wyman followed, and John Paul Jones - "we used to be neighbours".
Julie said: "I have always had sympathy with the underdog and I have alwayss been aware of what is unfair in the world. I am very emotionally involved. As a musician, I felt kind of like a troubadour - someone to spread the news. I feel all artists have the ability, if not the responsibility, to spotlight certain areas in our cultures that need balancing.
" These days you do occasionally get someone coming up with a conscience. But at present there is no surprise that music is currently at an all time low. It is like a wave of feeling that goes out and comes back in. After the sixties and seventies, there was a tremendous wave of materialism. But I do think a concern for our environment will eventually come through. It can not be ignored anymore. Protests will come through music again - I certainly hope so.
"Music is a wonderful catalyst. I have seen people, who have been as hard as nails, moved to tears by it."
Julie first came to prominence in the mid-60s. After enjoying chart and television success she seemed to fade out of the limelight.
She said: "Folk was not in the fore any more, and at the end of the seventies I stopped singing for four or five years and moved back to the US from England. In 1986 I went on a peace march in Central America and it made me realise there was still a lot to sing about so I came back to England.
"I think I also went through a mid life crisis. Having had a high profile, I started to wonder who I really was. It was a difficult time for me. I think it was because I had always been protesting against people with money and power, and then I became one of those people.
"When I came back to England I started singing in clubs and getting involved in human rights again. I went back to what inspired me in my early career, but sang with a greater maturity."
Although a native Californian, Julie spends most of her time in England. She said: "I prefer being here... except for the weather. I feel safer somehow on European soil."
Julie wrote her first song aged just seven and can still perform it if asked. She laughs: "It was about a pixie."
She was taught how to play guitar by her father - "an excellent musician" - and she lists her biggest influences as being Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and the poetry of Leonard Cohen.
She is working on recording a tribute album to Dylan and plans a tour in the spring.

From an original article by Beverly Greenberg, which appeared in the Weekend Guide of the Bolton Evening News on Friday January 25th, 2002 http://www.thisisbolton.co.uk

 

Julie Felix: The campaigning continues

Super trouper's thoughts on war

How have American liberals reacted to the terrible events of September 11, and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan?
Who better to ask than Julie Felix, who in her heyday in the Sixties and Seventies was known not only as a splendid singer, but also as a marcher against the war in Vietnam and for the environment?
Now in her sixties, and a long-time UK resident, Felix continues to campaign. She had a track on the Language of Women CD in aid of breast cancer research, runs a Guitars Against Landmines campaign, and has strong feelings about the richest country in the world bombing the poorest.
"My first reaction to the New York events was one of horror," she says. "I was surprised at the amount of patriotism that followed the attack, of a big country pulling together to support New York, and after the initial shock, it looked as if people were considering the wider picture, and that maybe something good could come out of this.
"Then I was in church in Santa Barbara, California, with my mother when the news came through that the first bombs had fallen on Afghanistan. My eyes just welled up with tears. I feel a very emotional sadness rather than anger. Obviously, they need to weed out the terrorists, but then they need to find out what it is that makes tens of thousands of people all over the world have similar sort of beliefs."
Felix says she is a fan of former president Bill Clinton, despite his personal shortcomings. "At least he has a vision and realises that as long as half the children in the world go to sleep hungry, we will have
problems."
Musically, Julie Felix has recently made a CD of cover versions of the songs of her old friend Bob Dylan, to mark his 60th birthday. "It's something I've wanted to do for years," she says. "A lot of other people have recorded these songs, but his music and songs were an integral part of the protest movement, and they are even more timely now.
"There are a lot of people who are not vengeful; in Britain especially people are aware of what's happening in the rest of the world - there's a kind of sanity and shared vision which you don't feel in America. I have criticised Tony Blair, but at least he talks about rebuilding Afghanistan after the war. Americans just want to get back into their munchie bars."

Eric Roberts
YORKSHIRE POST MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 10-16, 2001

 

MOJO - May 1998

Phone Home JULIE FELIX

"I grew up listening to my father singing Mexican songs. I was helping someone run for office in High School and I wrote a song - Betsy Robert For Queen Of The Girls' League. It didn¹t work out on the ukulele so I asked my father if I could use his guitar. Soon I started singing in coffee houses in Santa Barbara. A little guy used to come to those clubs. He was always asking me about guitar chords. He used to get on my nerves. His name was David Crosby.
I took off for Greece in June 62, supposedly for three months, but I never went home, I came to Britain via France, Italy and Spain, singing in folk clubs and even army bases. When I signed with Decca, they couldn¹t even make up their minds whether folk music was classical or popular - they hadn¹t recorded any before! My big break, of course, was The Frost Report. That came about because I met David one day in a very slow lift. The 60s was a time when that kind of thing happened. The Frost Report took me out of the folk scene to something much bigger - although the folk scene then viewed me as if I¹d sold out. After Frost I was given my own BBC2 series, complete with a 28-piece band!
When my career faded in the 70s, my financial, spiritual, personal and psychological life seemed to crash along with it. Without the cushion of success, I was in a very fragile state. I didn¹t really know how to survive - simple things like looking after my car, my washing machine. Not being called on to sing cut away my identity.
For about 20 years I thought very negatively. But now I want to accent the positive. A lot of people are coming out of that same shock wave, figuring out how to come back in a more mature, feminine way. As I head towards my 60th birthday, I see myself as becoming a credited crone. I want to help re-establish the position of older women as counsellors in the world.
On a very personal level, I want to reclaim my free spirit - which I lost somewhere along the way. Professionally, I¹m now writing my music in a way I haven¹t done before, using my life experience as the source."
Interview by Tim Quinn

 

Julie finds another cause to sing about

County Border News
East Grinstead

October 4th 2001

I have witnessed many magical moments in rock and roll and modern music. This is one of them...
It is quiet in the small rear garden of the Chequer Mead Theatre in East Grinstead; peaceful, that is, save for the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar and a voice that is almost as soft as the wind caressing the last of the summer flowers.
Julie Felix is singing Bob Dylan's Not Dark Yet and is performing it for me, right down the barrel of my lens, as we both snatch a moment from our hero's songbook.
Of course, the freshly turned 60 Dylan and Ms Felix are no strangers to each other and on the recent BBC 2 "The Bob Dylan Story", Julie paid homage to the legend.

They come from the same generation where to have a cause or a protest was as necessary as a tied dyed T-shirt or a flower in the hair. Dylan has long since given up the protest and journeyed towards his place in social and musical history.
Julie Felix, on the other hand, is still a rambling troubadour and as I write is probably on the stage of a pub or club, somewhere in the UK, just her and her Martin guitar, plying the trademark that made her a household name in Britain in the early part of the 1960s.
And the Californian who first arrived in England in 1964 and established herself here through her appearances on the Frost Report, her BBC tv show and a certain big gig called the Isle of Wight Festival - it also heralded the comeback of Dylan after five years - is still bearing the cross of a cause to sing for.
She is appearing in concert at the Chequer Mead Theatre on October 25th as part of the theatre's Language of Women Festival. The event runs from October 13-27, stars the likes of Julie, Kiki Dee, Kate Rusby, Cheryl Beer, Barb Jungr, Melia Faye and a drama about Janis Joplin, workshops, stalls and exhibitions, is endeavouring to explore and inspire music within the female community and also is aiming to raise £15,000 for Breast Cancer Care.
During the golden years of her career, Julie Felix recorded around 20 singles, four EPs, and over 15 LPs - many of them containing Dylan material - and put folk music on the map.
More recently she has released five CDs after a spell of living in Norway and a return to the States where she took a break from singing to study yoga, meditation and healing. She picked up the guitar again when she took part in a peace march through Central America.
Julie came back to England to find the threads and began singing for Latin American refugees, women and gay rights and peace projects, founded her own record label and launched Goddess Tours, arranging trips and pilgrimages to sacred sites in Britain, Turkey, France and the American Southwest.
You can expect her concert later this month at East Grinstead to be peppered with Bob Dylan compositions - her latest project is to
record a double album of Mr Zimmerman's songs and her website is inviting internet surfers to vote for which tracks should be included. Hence the reason she is softly offering me her version of Not Dark Yet in the garden of the theatre.
For details of the Language of Women Festival contact the Chequer Mead Theatre on 01342 325577 or check out www.chequermead.org.uk a CD featuring Julie Felix and the artistes appearing in the festival is now available from the theatre - proceeds are for Breast Cancer Care.

 

Article from a 1960's Annual

A truly international personality is that lovely, dark-eyed singer of folk songs Julie Felix. She was born in Santa Barbara, California, on June 14, 1941 - of a Mexican father and an American mother of Welsh ancestry. She remembers that her zeal for folk songs was aroused during her childhood by Burl Ives' LP's in her mother's collection and by Mexican songs learned from her father. During her high school days she used to sing at beach parties. This led to a booking at a Santa Barbara coffee-bar.
"I was so scared before my first show," Julie recalls, "that I had to boost my confidence with a few glasses of wine. This did the trick!" Julie's international travels began in 1962. She had been working at a school for mentally backward children and as a sports mistress. She had scraped and saved till she had 1,000 dollars. Then she went to a Greek island in the Aegean. She eked out a living by singing in local coffee bars for 30s. per night. Next she hitched through Italy and France before heading for the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. She sang there for six months, had a spell in Germany, then came back to Britain in September, 1964. Though she has triumphed here as a TV personality and disc star, she still adds to her international status with appearances abroad.

 

Southern Reporter

Thursday August 30, 2001

Julie Felix, one of the central figures of the 1960s US folk movement along with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Tom Paxton, returns to the Borders next month for what is steadily becoming an annual pilgrimage.
On Friday, September 7, she takes the stage at Bowhill Little Theatre, outside Selkirk, for the second year running, while the following Saturday night she is at the Wynd Theatre in Melrose for what has become an annual event.
Performing for more than three decades, Felix's ability to captivate an audience with her pure and powerful voice remains undiminished.
Her work reflects the experience and integrity of a lifetime committed to music; and the importance of her part in the American folk movement of the 1960s - although overshadowed to a great extent by Dylan and Baez - should not be forgotten. In the 1960s, her music was all about moving simplicity and lyricism, with songs that dealt with peace, love and protest.
Today, a heightened political and spiritual consciousness has seen Felix forge a style that seems a world away from her fragile 1960s image. The beautiful fluidity of her voice and the perfect pitch are both still there but now combined with a hard-won inner peace. Her material leans towards the spiritual, and her singing creates compelling tensions as she shifts mood and ambience.

 

Loud and clear

Folk legend Julie Felix has never been afraid to speak her mind.  
Jon Rhodes talked to her ahead of her gig in Leeds tomorrow night.

Yorkshire Evening Post   Wednesday 4 April 2001

Folk legend's still talking tough

You would have thought that after 37 years behind the microphone Julie Felix would have run out of things to say.

However, nothing could be further from the truth for an artist whose many stands against the establishment appear as relevant today as they ever were.

Investigate any facet of man's inhumanity to man over the last four decades and you will find the American songstress has either sung about it or been at the front of a march with guitar in one hand, placard in the other.

Just as in the famous Bob Dylan track, which still has pride of place in Julie¹s live set, the times are still a changing.  And for that reason, this is one singer who still has plenty to say.

FRESH
So bland and unwaveringly crass are many of today¹s allegedly cutting-edge acts that Julie's words and music are still as fresh a breath of musical air as they were 30-odd years ago. 

 'If people still come and see me perform, then I will continue to play,'  she explains.

'The age of people who come to my gigs is extremely varied, from those who came to see me in the 60's right up to young kids who probably don't know too much about me, which is great to see.'

'I think people understand and relate to what I¹m saying no matter what the age.  I use music as a form of communication because it touches the heart as well as the mind.'

California-born Julie has lived in Britain since 1964.  Signed by Decca Records she soon became regarded as the female Dylan with a string of thought-provoking songs which brought her to the attention of legendary TV presenter David Frost.  She became The Frost Report's resident in-house singer for two years before she got her own TV show which the BBC screened for another three.  

Despite her success, her ideals remained unchanged as she emersed herself in the helter-skelter ride of the late 60's.  She was at the forefront of many a campaign, perhaps most notably in the fight to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Now, at the age of 62, Julie is still as passionate as ever about her work which brings her to Leeds City Varieties tomorrow night.

While the world has changed for the better in many ways since she started out on her musical journey, there are still many issues for her to get her teeth into.  None more so than the new resident of the White House.

Horrible
'What has gone on in the few short months since Bush was elected president has been horrible,' she said.

'We have pressure being put on Mexico to accept the GM food produced in the US as well as Bush seemingly trying to reverse everything Clinton did to help protect the environment.'

'Bush is using the current electricity shortage in California to try and undermine the Kyoto agreement in order to increase the industrial output of the country.'

'It's a very dangerous policy and one that needs to be challenged.  I am just hoping that other world leaders such as Tony Blair are strong enough to stand up to Bush.'

Julie Felix will play City Varieties, Swan Street, Leeds, tomorrow night (5 April 2001) supported by former Generation Game co-host Isla St Clair.  For tickets call the box office on 0113-243-0808.

Yorkshire Evening Post   Wednesday 4 April 2001

 

SHROPSHIRE STAR

WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH 2001

Much-cherished vereran folk singer Julie Felix calls Shropshire "one of Britain's undiscovered treasures".
And so, she says, it is with a genuine sense of fondness that she returns to perform here once again.
The Poppy House in Bishop's Castle has long been a supporter of quality, live music and on Saturday17 March 2001 it will welcome this highly respected singer/songwriter for an evening of fine food and song.
Julie began her colourful career as the resident singer on the popular BBC television series The Frost Report in the 1960's.  
In the following years, Julie worked with such headlining performers as Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and the wonderful Dusty Springfield.
In 1965, Felix - having moved from California to England the year before - was the headline performer at Croydon's Fairfield Hall and very quickly established herself as Britain's First Lady of Folk.
Acting as the humanitarian ambassador for Christian Aid, Julie made high profile visits to the Lebanon, Jordan and East Africa, returning to London to give her first solo concert.
This appearance gave Julie the honour of being the first British-based folk singer ever to fill the Royal Albert Hall.
She went on to become a household name with regular television appearances.
Beatles manager Brian Epstein asked Julie, in 1967, to top the bill with Georgie Fame for a week's engagement at London's Saville Theatre, and "Fame and Felix" became a smash success.

 

Back on the Road

Solihull News, 15 March 2001

AS many readers will recall, the first British folk singer to become a star was in fact an American. Julie Felix was so popular in the UK of the sixties that she ended up with her own tv chat show and counted Dusty Springfield, John Paul Jones and Sandie Shaw amongst her close friends.
People of my generation are far more likely to remember her for singing Everyone's Going To The Zoo, the soundtrack to our primary school years. I was particularly impressed when Julie told me she had appeared with a true showbiz giant, Basil Brush.
Nowadays, Julie has returned to her folk roots and is currently putting together an album to celebrate Bob Dylan's 60th birthday. I chatted to her in her garden in Santa Barbara about her forthcoming gig on March 20 at Solihull's Dovehouse
Theatre.
Julie's road to success was very different to today's manufactured pop stars. She headed out from the US in '64, inspired by Jack Kerouac's On The Road. I asked Julie how her parents had felt about their young daughter travelling through Europe on her own. "They thought I was going on a three month trip but it lasted for 36 years!"
"The feeling generated by that book (On The Road) was very much in the air, many people from my generation wanted to get out there and really experience life.  Kerouac and the existentialist writers like Camus were an inspiration, although I still don't know what 'existentialist' really means! We wanted to know what it felt like to be hungry and out in the rain, meeting life head on."
It would have to be said that the head on approach was pretty effective in Julie's case. In 1964 she was the first solo folk artist to sign to a major UK label, Decca, and the following year was hailed by the Sunday Times as "Britain's First Lady of Folk". She went on to become fill the Albert Hall, before becoming resident chanteuse on The Frost Report.
Julie remembers playing at Birmingham Town Hall around this time: "The Ian Campbell Folk Group were due to play (Ian is the father of UB40's Ali Campbell) but his sister Lorna, who had an incredibly powerful vocal style, had lost her voice. I was asked to replace her at the last minute, which was daunting but it was a fantastic gig. I think it was the first time I performed in Birmingham."
After appearing at the legendary 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, Julie was signed by Mickie Most and had the first hit on the RAK label with a cover of Paul Simon's If I Could.
"Mickie Most was the guy who had real faith in my singing. Before I met him I used to just go into the studio and sing my stuff, but Mickey involved me in the process. I learned all about producing from him". Julie now produces all her material and has developed a perfectionist streak to rival her mentor's. "My last album, Live from the QEH, took over a year to mix. It was very hard because it was mainly just voice and guitar, which sounds like it should make it easier. But being a live performance, I wanted it to have a full sound and manipulate out all the acoustic pops and crackles. At the end of that performance I sang with the Glastonbury Choir, which was wonderful."
Julie's success continued throughout the seventies, until the massive cultural changes of the late seventies left her feeling disillusioned and questioning what her life was all about.
"The whole Thatcher and Reagan thing was terrible. Suddenly the world seemed to be a very bleak and materialistic place; on top of that folk music was almost reviled for a time.  I dropped out completely for three or four years with no intention of getting back into it."
At this time, Julie also found out that being famous has its own price. "Celebrity truly is one of the stranger aspects of reality. It felt as if my entire identity was created by my public image, and I had to come back to the States to take stock.  I became involved with yoga, which helped me to find out who I was on the inside." Some friends then invited Julie to join them on a march in Central America in opposition to America's aggressive foreign policy of the time. "I joined the march in Nicaragua and later in El Salvador. We had to be flown over Honduras as America was training death squads there at the time. America was really out to squash Ortega (the then President of Nicaragua) and was financing it all via arms to Iran and via its drugs policy.
"The more I became involved the more I came to realise my role as a singer was important, to reflect these things that were happening. I came back with much clearer thoughts, compared to the heady ideals of the Sixties".
Julie remains very much a political animal. Although more spiritual in her approach, she remains an idealistic and staunch defender of human rights and outspoken on a wide range of topics: the women's movement, green issues and peace campaigns to mention but a few.
"The Bush election was so disheartening and people are going crazy with guns in schools. Recently a 20 year old university student calling himself 'the Angel of Death' killed four people with his car. It would be easy to get disheartened but I think to counter the insanity there is a lot of inner strength coming through, and as masculine and feminine come into greater balance, I am hoping the power structures which govern our lives will also become more balanced."
Now sixty years old, Julie has some strong opinions on how women are perceived in showbusiness. "It still holds true that at my age, most women are considered derelict.. Certainly the pressures of fame still cast women in the role of sex symbol, which seriously damages career longevity. 
"It's important to me to show other women how they can enjoy being in their sixties - active, with energy and focus, and still having something to contribute. They can see how old I am but they can also see that I can still get on the stage and sing for two hours."
For her Bob Dylan project, Julie is inviting people to vote for their personal favourites at her website www.knibb.org/juliefelix. "Most people who have voted so far have  - like me - opted for early Dylan. To me he is like an actor's favourite playwright. His songs are often very hard to sing because they contain a whole list of images, often unrelated. I love his songs. They are just like fuel for me."
"I'll be doing plenty of Dylan stuff when I come over, and plenty of my own stuff too. I like to give people an idea of where I'm coming from."
Finally, I had to ask Julie if she still sings that zoo song. "Oh, it's so one-dimensional. For about ten years I flatly refused and became quite irate if anyone asked for it. Nowadays I'm a little more broadminded - I do it occasionally as part of a medley if there are children in the audience."
Julie Felix plays the Dovehouse Theatre on March 20. Tickets cost £8 and £7. For booking details, contact the box office on 0121 706 7139 or visit the website www.dovehousetheatre.co.uk

 

Dovehouse Theatre March 2001

Solihull News, 22 March 2001

Defying the years with style and grace, Julie Felix proved an enduring talent when she took the stage at Solihull's Dovehouse Theatre. Her voice still had power, clarity and great phrasing as she worked her way through a set encompassing the works of Dylan, Guthrie, Cohen and of course Felix.
If people were expecting a touch of sixties TV-land nostalgia, they were in for a bit of a jolt, at least in the first half. Her intelligent reworking of folk classics was interspersed with insights into matters as far ranging as the foot-and-mouth crisis and the US elections. All were delivered by a personality undampened by the years of experience, her sixties idealism intact and coherent.
Passionate protest songs were the order of the day, with two Mexican songs sung in Spanish particularly powerful, one had a spaghetti-western grandeur and the other benefited from plenty of percussion banged out on the guitar body.. It turned out her Mexican father had been a hard taskmaster when teaching her to play in this style, lessons well learned.
At one point she said: "People call me a folk singer and I guess so, but I feel more like a troubadour who tells of events as they're happening". Bob Dylan's Hollis Brown was given fresh relevance when Julie talked of a farmer in Wales who had committed suicide because foot-and-mouth had wiped out his livelihood. This harrowing tale of rural murder and suicide was as apposite and chilling now as the day it was written, with far more drawn out of the lyrics than in Dylan's often throwaway delivery.
Part two moved away a little from protest with a couple of audience sing-a-longs, including a two chord life-affirming tune about the elements - strangely reminiscent of the Velvet Underground at certain points. The shadow of Dylan was never too far from proceedings, however and a spirited rendition of Chimes of Freedom was included. Julie also revealed that on her travels to Greece in the early sixties, she had met another unknown traveller, a certain Leonard Cohen, who used to borrow her guitar. She spoke with fondness of his lyrics, 'blending the sacred and the sensual', before proving her point with Hallelujah.
Julie Felix seems to have discovered the elixir of life, not in terms of cosmetic appearance but by keeping in touch with and celebrating her inner sense of youthful exuberance. Towards the end, she commented "People say I'm over the hill, but I think it's quite nice on this side of the hill!"
An album of Dylan material is in the pipe-line and on the strength of this performance, should be worth waiting for.

 

Recharged and back in the loop

Express & Star, Friday November 24th 2000.

When Julie Felix was visiting a school in New Zealand a few years ago she was asked to say a few words to the history class. When she protested that she was never very good at the subject the teacher to!d her: "that's OK, just talk about yourself."
Julie tells the story against herself on her latest CD a double album recorded at a concert in Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, to celebrate car 60th birthday, or her cronedom, as she puts it.
Amazingly, it’s more than three decades since the Mexican-American diva first arrived on the English folk scene after leaving California and hitching through Europe with just a duffel bag and a guitar singing in Itailan and Greek cafes when she ran out of money.
Two years later she had made a big enough mark to land a regular spot on the Frost Report which led to her own TV series and several hit records. Like many on the folk ‘protest' scene her singing reflected her political involvement, particularly with women's rights and the peace movement.
Thirty years on, she looks serene But. then she always did: her trademark long black hair, high cheek bones arid eyes to fall into and drown.
She's part way through a tour that will keep her busy until the end of the year and which takes her to the Woodman Folk Club at Krngswinford tonight.
And she's loving it. Which is odd because in the late 8Os she turned her back on the entertainment world, stooped singing and moved back to California.
"I felt a bit burned out, a bit disillusioned both personally and politically" she recalls. "In  the 60s we had all these great dreams and they just sort of disappeared.... we got Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
"Everything really hit me. The political scene had turned around and folk music was on the way out, with punk music and all kinds of things corning. I had a reality check. I'd been in the spotlight for so long it was getting difficult to know who I was.
"I starred believing my own publicity. I identified myself with my career, rather than who I really was.
By that time I was making pretty good money and it was all at loggerheads with my ideas of being at one with the people of the land and the struggle, the dreams that I came up through. All these things sort of came together and I felt I just couldn’t perform any more and I decided to stop."
Back in the US, she studied yoga, meditation and healing for four years.
Then she took part in a peace march through central America which recharged her political batteries and inspired her to start singing again.
Now she’s back at her home in Hertfordshire, which she shares with her daughter and her husband. And in addition to her new-fond enthusiasm for performing and writing songs, she organises trips and pilgrimages for women to sacred sites throughout Britain.
She calls them Goddess Tours, and although it all sounds a bit New Age-y and a million miles from the bra-burning of the 6Os, Julie argues that these ‘spiritual journeys have a role to play in the women’s movement.
"Many women feel out of the loop because of the maleness of the divinity, so we travel together to sacred sites which were shrines to goddesses, like stone circles, holy wells. standing stones and that connects us to the divinity of the Earth itself. We need to respect her to revere her because we have wounded her very I greatly.
"The tours have taken me down a path of discovery that has really reinspired my feminism in an inner rather than political way.
"It's something that's connected to the optimism we had in the 60s but its also something very current, very now. I was swept up in the 60s thing.
"I had all the strengths and weakness of youth  - which was wonderful and I feel very blessed that I was part of it. It was a very symbolic, a very instrumental time, and even though t seems to have been buried I think that the seeds are beginning to bear fruit".

 

Julie's Back - singing stronger than ever

Worcester Evening News, Friday 24th November 2000

JulIe Felix, appearing at Huntingdon Hail, Worcester.
To the fresher-faced among us (me included), the name Julie Felix may leave a question mark, hut she’s a household name for the baby-boomer generation.
Singer-songwriter, TV presenter, peace campaigner, feminist, healer - the 62-year-old’s CV is a fascinating read.
When most near-pensioners would be enjoying the cosy confines of a fireside chair, Julie is still touring, recording and campaigning.
"I feel stronger now than I did when I was younger." she said before tomorrow’s concert in Worcester. I feel like I can speak with more conviction because I have been through so many things in my life."
Originally from California, Julie has made Britain her home - "it’s more civilised over here" - since she first hitched over to these shores in 1964. In the 6Os and 70s, Julie appeared on numerous TV shows and was equally famous for her anti-war declarations.
This culminated in her joining a three-week 300-strong march through Central America to denounce its repressive regimes.
Now hack in BritaIn to stay, she has ‘watched the American elections with disbelief, believing the media are part responsible for driving the disputed verdict into the courts for maximum coverage.
And she isn’t happy about our Government’s new Rapid Reaction Force - or Euro Army.
"I think it is a dangerous thing, not for what it looks like but because of what it is - a Euro army.
"l am naturally left wing, but I think this Government has got it badly wrong on issues like GM crops and fuel."
Julie’s concert at Huntingdon Hall will see her duet with former Generation Game hostess Isla St.Clair, as well as performing a mix of her old and new material.

 

JULIE FELIX & ISLA ST CLAIR Huntingdon Hall, Worcester, 25-11-00

Chas and Dave...Robson and Jerome...Sugar and Spice...Julie Felix and Isla St Clair? It may sound like an odd pairing, but the crowd at Huntingdon Hall on 25 November found the evening to be a delightful surprise.

Julie Felix opened the show with a strong rendition of Dylan's The Times They Are A Changing before introducing Isla St Clair who led the audience through a passionate first set. A natural at storytelling through the medium of song, Isla reached an emotional peak when she sang a song penned by her mother who had lost two brothers in World War I. Lest We Forget Dunkirk was obviously written with a degree of love equalled only by that of its singer. Isla St Clair delivered this very personal anti-war message in a manner not quickly to be forgotten.

And then...something completely different! The legendary Julie Felix stormed the stage with such energy and charisma that one could be forgiven for seeing her still as that enigmatic Sixties flower child. Always an excellent interpreter of others' songs...has there ever been a more powerful version of Bob Dylan's Hard Rain¹s Gonna Fall...Julie has also developed her own very unique songwriting to the point of rivalling the best of her folk heroes. Till Now, labelled a 'positive love song' by its composer, manages to do what so few love songs have ever managed - stir the emotions in a personal, uplifting way while, at the same time, avoiding the trap of overt sentimentality. In a time when audiences are crying out for intelligent songwriting, Julie Felix can certainly deliver just that.

The Huntingdon Hall concert continued with a jolly sing-song led by the combined talents of Julie Felix and Isla St Clair. The crowd demanded an encore but, with the concert already running long, Julie opted instead to bring the evening to a close with an amazing acappella offering of the traditional Irish Farewell.

Julie Felix and Isla St Clair - a surprisingly magical teaming.

JANE QUINN Picture ©Jane Quinn 2000

 

RELATIVE VALUES - JULIE AND TANIT FELIX

The Sunday Times Magazine, Ocrober 22, 2000.

The singer and 60's icon Julie Felix, 62, was called the English Joan Baez.
Her daughter, Tanit, 29, is a counselor.
Tanit and her boyfriend, Richard Field, live in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, with Julie.
Interviews: Ann McFerran.
Photographs by Richard Okon.

JULIE: I wanted to be a mother, but I was running around being the singer Julie Felix with my TV series - two on BBC2 and one on BBC 1. My managers made me three years younger than I was, so I was born in 1941, the same year as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. When I became pregnant. on paper I was 30. although I was really 33.
I didn’t tell my mother I was pregnant, and she hasn’t forgiven me for that. I called her up after Taint was horn on December 18, and told her she had her first granddaughter. Strangely enough, my mother was born on December 19th and if Tanit had been in California she would have been born on the 19th too. There’s no way l was planning to have my daughter on my mother’s birthday - see how fate plays a large role in one’s life.

When Tanit was small. I toured and left her at home being cared for by other people. I felt I had to keep up with things and fulfill myself. So I went on blindly touring and being away a lot. I remember when I had to say goodbye to Tanit. she would cry and scream - but I still walked out that door. In Norway where we lived for about a year, some of her teachers tried to tell me I should spend more time with her. I said: "No, she’s fine:’ But what they said struck a chord. Today not only do feel bad that I wasn't at home to take her hand through life’s transitions, I also feel a deep loss for what I missed.
I was so insecure, I felt other people could look after Tanit better than me. I thought a Rudolf Steiner school would be good for her because they concentrate on looking after the whole child. On reflection. I realised no school or caretaker, however dedicated, is a replacement for home and a mother. There were times I was aware of it. But I blocked it out. Now I have guilt issues around all that.
One awful incident stays with me. Tanit was only two years old and I couldn't bear leaving her behind when I went to Kenya. One night, I left her in the hotel room and I put a kanga (a cotton robe) over the light. Tanit came down to the swimming pool where I was sitting saying: "Mummy Mummy!" I said: "Go back to bed:’ But she carried on saving: "Mummy  Munmy!" So I went to back to the room and discovered that the kanga had caught tire. And there I was, telling her she should go back to bed!
I have been told I’m not very emotionally resilient. Someone said to me that I’m very creative. so if something went wrong I turned it into something horrible. While she was growing up, Tanit was often mad at me for not being a normal mother: for not being at home baking cookies. Ar that time, my life was chaotic and riddled with guilt and anxiety  which didn’t help Tanit.
Looking back, I think I suffered from being in the public eve, which meant that I didn’t grow up emotionally. Things were exaggerated. I had to pretend everything was good all the time. If I sang in a hall that was only half—full, I had to say it was full. If I got a bad review people said the reviewers got it wrong. Consequently I was in denial for a lot of things. and I made excuses.
But as she grew up, Tanit wouldn’t let me do that. I felt I’d failed because my career had stopped. Actually, it had just leveled off. which was partly to do with musical fashion. I got depressed and scared, For awhile, I think I suffered a breakdown. It was an identity crisis: everyone knew me as a singer, I was defined in terms of a so-called image. Like most teenagers. Tanit didn’t like her mother’s lifestyle. She was so bright and articulate and hurtful, she would attack me, saving I felt sorry for myself and I was selfish. I would cry and be tremendously hurt. When Tanit was about 15. I went to an astrologer, who recommended therapy. I was  50  and therapy saved my sanity. The Jungian therapist said that if l straightened out my own life it it would help Tanit.
Today Tanit and I have this role reversal, like Absolutely Fabulous. I am 62 and still insecure. Like many Geminis, I am the child, while Tanit is the responsible one who advises me. She is beginning to appreciate some positive things about being brought up by me. She was a very wanted and loved child. Now she’s living at home, we have the chance to live through some things we didn’t when she was younger. It’s good to have healing time. But Tanit is reluctant to have children, because I wasn’t at home.
I was worried that because she didn’t have a father figure, she’d get involved with an older man. But she’s told me she’s had stable relationships. Richard, her partner, is a good person and like a son to me. I love him to bits. He’s also a Gemini and he cares for Tanit. I felt she was disapproving about my boyfriends, because I was kind of wild in that way. But I think we had different relationships in the Sixties: I had a rather Sixties arrangement with Leonard Cohen, who never wanted children. For various reasons, we didn’t have contact with Tanit’s father -  we don’t talk to anyone about him - and I feel guilty about that. We have locked horns many times during her life, but in recent years I think Tanit can see life is not all dark. She’s a beautiful, wonderful daughter - and she is probably my greatest gift.

TANIT: People say: "Wow! ls Julie Felix really your mother?" My boyfriend’s father was completely in love with her, and I keep hearing about men who were besotted with her and women who warned to have hair like her. When I see tapes of her television shows, I think: "Wow - Mum, you really were famous!" And: "God, you looked great!"
She’d been up there singing alongside Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen and the Rolling Stones. She had her own spot on the David Frost show and then her own BBC show. She was a longtime girlfriend of David Frost and she dated Paul McCartney, who played her Strawberry Fields before it was published. But she was so worried about being thought of as a "cool, hip chick" that she didn’t dare say anything to him.

Mum has never stopped slinging. But now she sells her albums at concerts and through catalogues and she drives herself to her gigs and carries her own sound system.
My mum says she wanted to be a mum, but she didn’t know how. She’s not very maternal and she couldn’t give me a secure and stable childhood, which I really minded. From when I was little, she was away touring for months at a time, so she had different people - quite strong and stern figures - looking after me. That was very hard. Sometimes when she came home. I was a real brat. I’d say: "Where’s my present?" And 1 wouldn't even run and hug her.
Mum didn't pick me up from school and check my homework, which part of me wanted. I went to boarding school when I was about seven, and really pined for Mum. I went to a Rudolf Steiner school in a little village in the Ashdown Forest, and another Steiner school in California. Frankly I now believe they may’ have done all this extracurricular stuff concerned with making the pupils into more rounded people, but they forgot about important things like maths and spelling.
Over the years, I began to feel very resentful that Mum wasn’t there. I used to fantasise about having a mum and dad and brothers and sisters. As a teenager, I was so horrible to Mum. I’d say: "You were never there for me.’ But because she still has so much guilt about it, she won’t say: "But that’s all in the past - just get on with your life." Which means it doesn’t get resolved.
I chose to go to Middlesex university because it was close to home. Afterwards I thought "I'm supposed to be someone who is out there or traveling the world, but I just want to be safe and at home" And Mum just let me. ‘W’hich is where I salute her. She says everybody has their own beat to their own drum: you will find your way eventually.
Now we have a weird co-dependency: I’m a counselor, my mum is the performer. I am the nurturer who runs the home, which allows her, the musician, to go off, and then I’m here for her to come home to. I love being here in our home - my partner, who runs a garden design business, lives with us. Today our roles are reversed, and we say we’re a bit like Saffy and Edina in Ab Fab. I’m the housewife who cleans up after my mum -  who comes in after her gigs and causes so much chaos, I’ll say, "Clear this up!" and "You’re going to be late!" When you’re a star you don't realise you’re the one who should be buying more washing-up liquid, because someone does it all for you. And fair enough. But I feel I’m talking to her with this constant nagging voice.
I’m much more traditionally’ feminine than my mum: I’m always cleaning, but she just doesn’t notice. She’s really a tomboy at heart and she doesn’t care about clothes, whereas I’ve always been into make up and all that kind of stuff. I look at Mum, thinking: "Why don’t you do that with your hair?" Meanwhile, she just throws on her favourite old jeans and trainers.
When she’s talking to people at her concerts about politics and spirituality and astrology, I worry that they’ll think she’s mad or that they’ll disapprove of her or that no one in the audience will like her. I admire the way she’s not that worried about people being disapproving, but I find it hard that she’s so full-on about her reality. When she brings astrology into a conversation with the bank manager. I think: "Why do you have to do this with people like that?"
I prefer not to talk about my dad, but I think Mum tended to go for strong, bossy boyfriends because, even though she was this beautiful, famous person. she wasn’t in control. Today I find life a struggle in lots of ways. I know I’m responsible for my own life, but I also feel my mum hasn’t taken responsibility for her parenting because it’s too painful for her. However, I know if said to her, "We should talk about it’, she would.
Having said all that, I always knew I was a wanted child and I knew she loved me. Mum and I have a very real bond. She’s had her hard times and she’s changed. Now she’s at home with me - unlike when I was a child.