Black & Free - Tom Skinner

BLACK & FREE - TOM SKINNER

Well, to say I'm disappointed is an understatement. I'm underwhelmed, and it all started off so promisingly. From the title 'Black & Free' and the front cover picture in almost dayglo pink and blue of black men facing off gun-toting National Guardsmen. From the introductory first few pages describing a rumble in Harlem between rival gangs wielding bicycle chains, bottles, knuckledusters, and lead balls in socks. All good stuff but by page 26, however, the author is talking about Jesus and Christianity and it's suddenly one of those Talking Heads moments where you might ask yourself 'How did I get here?'

It turns out that author Tom Skinner is a Baptist minister and Black & Free is his memoir. Doh! as Homer Simpson would say. I've nothing against the author personally, of course - how could I, he's probably been dead for years - but the story of how he came to accept Jesus Christ into his life is not what I'm after. In fact, I couldn't give a flying fucking fuck, to be frank.

Written in 1968 at a time when the barricades were going up in Paris, when Vietnam was a slaughterhouse, and revolution and emancipation was on the agenda along had come Tom Skinner - self-proclaimed peoples' prophet - declaring that all the problems of the world, all the social injustice, prejudice and oppression was all down to the sin in the hearts of men. Live and let live and each to one's own but as Patti Smith once advised, Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine so you can stuff such ideas as 'original sin' where they belong in the dustbin of history or better still up your arse.

'Forgive them, for they know not what they do' is the reply. So the crusaders, the ministers and all the soldiers of Christ are right and I'm wrong. Which is a bit presumptuous, is it not? A bit arrogant? A bit overbold? To believe and then exclaim that you're right and everyone else is wrong isn't 'faith'. It's self-idolatry and it's the seed of prejudice that when pronounced as a sin in others goes unrecognized in the self because it also serves as a blacked-out mirror. 

'Love does not come naturally. Love is not part of human nature. It is not in the nature and desire of man to love instead of to hate. That type of life can only be produced by the person of Jesus Christ,' the author says. But I beg to differ. And actually, this is a fundamental building block of a person's worldview that dictates their course through life. Personally, I'm with Kropotkin and the idea that man is a naturally social creature and the key to his welfare and survival is through co-operation, mutual aid and altruism. It's obvious. If it wasn't then we'd all be out in the streets killing each other, or at least absolutely despising each other. 

What a horrible life it must be to believe that man is naturally hateful? No wonder anyone thinking this might turn to Jesus for salvation. For sanctuary. For a crutch.

I bought Black & Free on the strength of its cover and the series of photos enclosed within its pages showing the ghettoes of America in flames during the race riots of the Sixties but on reading it found myself caught-up in the tortured fantasies of a Baptist minister. I wanted revolution and the Black Panthers but found myself being told it's better to suck it up and to turn the other cheek. 

Well, thank you for the advice. But no thanks.

John Serpico

Wayward - Vashti Bunyan

WAYWARD - JUST ANOTHER LIFE TO LIVE -

VASHTI BUNYAN

Like a lot of other people I was quite late in coming to Vashti Bunyan, perhaps even later than most? It was on YouTube where her name first popped up and a picture of her standing in a fur coat next to a brick wall that was used for the cover of her Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind compilation LP. The black-and-white photograph was reminiscent of Rita Tushingham in A Taste Of Honey, or football pools winner Viv Nicholson even, and it immediately caught my eye. Algorithms can be a curse but every once in a while they might also be a blessing?

Vashti Bunyan is an English singer, often labelled as a folk singer but actually having more in common with Nick Drake though it's a comparison she would immediately shy away from just as she would vehemently deny the folk singer label.

During the 1960s, Bunyan was heard singing at a private party and her name then mentioned to Andrew Loog Oldham, the twenty-one year old manager of the Rolling Stones and ex-manager of Marianne Faithfull, who subsequently invited her to his Mayfair office to meet and for her to sing him some of her songs. Oldham immediately offered to make a record with her but insisted it had to be a Richards/Jagger composition called Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind.

To a lot of singers back then, this would have been a dream come true but Bunyan wasn't best pleased because what she really wanted was to record and release her own songs. Oldham advised that one of her compositions could be the B-side, and on the advice of her father to "compromise, dear girl", Bunyan went ahead with the deal.

Despite various appearances up and down the country for local TV stations the record failed to capture the public's imagination and so sunk without trace though to listen to it nowadays, in hindsight it's a veritable pop gem - a veritable pearl before swine.

Bunyan was sucked into the machinations of the music business of the 1960s where it became clear to her that all Oldham wanted was for her to become a replacement for Marianne Faithfull, a role she was eminently unsuitable for and that went against all her instincts and desires to be a songwriter and musician in her own right.

Come 1968 she'd just about had enough of it. Tired and broken by the constant male chauvinism of the music industry, tired of being pushed every which way by those who thought they knew best and all to a distinct lack of any sort of success, Vashti Bunyan walked away from it all. Not to take up another career or to marry and have children or any of that stuff but to simply walk away. To escape. So, Bunyan went off to live in a bush in a wood.

It's too easy to say that Bunyan had a mental breakdown ala Peter Green or Syd Barrett. She admits to not being well at that time and had been diagnosed by her family doctor as being hypoglycaemic though how accurate that diagnosis was is impossible to tell. The bottom line of it is that after an accumulation of events, something snapped inside of her and Bunyan turned her back on everything, including not least the promise of pop stardom and Andrew Loog Oldham's plan to sell her as the next Marianne Faithfull.

Into the wilderness she went. To live in a bush. In a wood. In Bromley. To join a student boyfriend who was living likewise in a bid to save money. It didn't last as they were soon discovered and evicted by the landowner whereupon they then had the bright idea to purchase a horse and wagon and head to the Outer Hebrides to live there.

Into the wilderness. Like Christopher McCandless heading off into Alaska for a new life, as depicted in the film Into The Wild. Potentially like Lawrence Oates on Scott's expedition to the Antarctic, leaving the tent one night with the words 'I am just going outside and may be some time'.

This strange, long trip by horse and cart from London to the Outer Hebrides is what the bulk of Vashti Bunyan's book Wayward - Just Another Life To Live is about, bookended by tales from her childhood (at one point describing a backstage encounter with a young, unsmiling and angry Cliff Richard looking at her with hatred) and from 1997 onwards which is when Bunyan went on to the Internet for the first time and discovered that not only was her debut album she'd recorded in 1970 (of her own songs) now a collectors item but even that a cult audience had developed around it.

Vashti Bunyan's story is ultimately one of triumph over adversity, of how talent will always out, and of the importance of being true to oneself. Being 'wayward' is simply another way of describing being singular of vision. A way of describing the importance of keeping safe the flame inside even when it's but a flicker. A way of describing the importance of when having a dream to hold onto it forever even if it's but a memory of a dream thought long dead. Being 'wayward' is just another way to live your life but on your own terms. And Wayward is a good book and a joy to read.

John Serpico