Coffee-Table Notes

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze – Poet, performer Born March 11, 1956; died August 4, 2021     Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, who has died aged 65 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, was a poet and performer who became known as Jamaica’s first woman dub poet. Fusing reggae rhythms with powerful evocations of the black female experience, she published nine collections of her work and released five albums, while her live performances were spellbinding and intense affairs.    This was evident when a volume of selected works, Third World Girl (2011), was accompanied by a DVD of live performances. It was apparent too in 2016, when she appeared in Edinburgh at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery as part of an event organised by the city’s premiere spoken word night, Neu! Reekie! The night was programmed to reflect the connections between Scotland and Jamaica, as well as launch what turned out to be Breeze’s final collection, the Verandah Poems.   This wasn’t Breeze’s first visit to Scotland. In 1996, fol

Piers Plowright – Radio producer   Born December 30, 1937; died July 23, 2021      Piers Plowright, who has died aged 83, was a radio producer whose documentaries explored the quietly extraordinary lives of what might be regarded as ordinary people. Plowright made  programmes such as Nobody Stays in This House Long (1983), about an elderly Kensington couple who recalled their estate agent’s words fifty years earlier as they finally leave their house. Through this and others like it, Plowright tapped into people’s lives in a way that revealed something much bigger about society.    This was the case too in Setting Sail (1985), in which Plowright talked to various people about death;  and in One Big Kitchen Table (1988), which showed off the life of the Famous Delicatessen, a Jewish food emporium in Philadelphia. These seemingly small, everyday stories were put together with love and care, with Plowright’s sensitivity towards his subjects opening them up in a way that made for engaging l

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – Producer, dub pioneer   Born March 20/28, 1936; died August 29 2021      Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who has died aged 85, was a musical pioneer, whose free-spirited use of the recording studio as an instrument created some of the most innovative music of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Using his first hand experience of Jamaican sound systems, Perry’s innovations saw some of the earliest uses of sampling, when the sound of a crying baby was used on his song, People Funny Boy (1968).    Perry moved Jamaican music forward, beyond ska towards reggae, and then to dub. The latter subverted existing recordings through use of echo, reverb and other electronic effects to create radically reinvented new versions of the material. Perry’s sonic collages were chopped out on primitive four-track equipment in his back yard studio, creating a dense stew of sound that changed music forever.   While much has been made of Perry’s eccentric appearance and dervish-like

Don Everly – Singer, songwriter   Born February 1, 1937; died August 21, 2021   Don Everly, who has died aged 84, was one half of The Everly Brothers, the honey-voiced duo who defined teen angst with a close harmony vocal style loaded with yearning. During their golden period, between 1957 and 1965, Everly and his younger brother Phil had twenty-eight hit singles in the British Top 30. Songs such as Bye Bye Love (1957), All I Have to Do is Dream (1958), and Crying in the Rain (1961) formed the soundtrack to many a post-hop heartbreak. With the passing of the years, the relatively innocent sounding tone of their records shrouded them in an ennui-laden haze of nostalgia.   In their heyday, the Everlys seemed invincible, belying the seeming fragility of their songs, which sounded like they were about to burst into tears any minute. Following their first hit with Bye Bye Love, they had a stream of chart toppers. Cathy’s Clown (1960) stayed at number one for nine weeks. Beatles John Lennon

Hugh Collins - Artist, writer   Born June 17, 1951; died August 5, 2021      Hugh Collins, who has died aged 70, was a convicted murderer who transcended his past while serving a life sentence at  HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow to become an artist and writer.   This was enabled after Collins was taken under the wing of the Barlinnie Special Unit, the radical rehabilitation programme that ran from 1972 to 1994. Championing a progressive, therapeutic approach that was in stark contrast to the prevailing brutalisation of the penal system, the Special Unit enabled self-expression through access to art.   While Jimmy Boyle, was the most high profile figure to emerge from the Special Unit’s enlightened approach, Collins’ life was similarly turned around. He created sculptures both while still in prison and following his release after serving sixteen years of his sentence. In 1983, he designed the set for a play, Death in Custody, and was allowed out to watch the production on the Edinburgh Festiva

Joey Jordison – Drummer   Born April 26, 1975; died July 26, 2021   Joey Jordison, who has died aged 46, was a drummer whose presence was at the thundering heart of American nu-metal band Slipknot. The group’s musical assault was heightened by a theatrical stage presence that saw each member wear grotesque horror movie style masks and costumes. Jordison performed in a white kabuki style mask with fake black blood drippings and a crown of thorns. His choice of mask was rooted in a childhood incident when his mother surprised him on Halloween sporting an original kabuki mask and a white robe. In keeping with the conceptualism, each of the band’s nine members was given a number. Jordison was number 1.     Slipknot’s mix of visceral fury and crowd-pleasing showmanship helped drag metal into the twenty-first century, with their albums selling millions. Their self-titled 1999 debut went double platinum. They were nominated for ten Grammys, and in 2006 won one for Best Metal Performance for t

Edinburgh Festival Fringe @  Newhailes House & Garden, Musselburgh Four stars If you go down to the woods over the next couple of weeks, weather permitting, the surprise in Grid Iron theatre company’s long awaited new outdoor show comes in just how well an open space can work for such expansive material. Much of this in Ben Harrison’s adaptation of Norwegian writer Erlend Loe’s 2004 novel as translated into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw is down to designer Becky Minto’s use of space. Working with lighting designer Elle Taylor, Minto’s transformation of a tree covered glade in a National Trust for Scotland run estate into a bijou hideaway for the play’s runaway hero provides a necessary sense of intimacy.   Doppler is a man who seemingly lives an ordinary urban existence with his high-flying wife and two children. Shortly after his father dies, he has an accident on his bike, and responds by moving out of the family home and living in a tent in the forest. In order to survive