Stories From Potters Field by Andy Wilson and Joe Solo
Reviewed by Tim Roux
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Joe Solo is a prolifically and prodigiously talented Northern England singer-songwriter who since the turn of the millennium has produced a steady flow of stand-out albums.
The trouble with ol' Joe is that he is a dyed-in-the-wool uncompromising old-fashioned Socialist who refuses to 'tart' up his songs with ear-candy arrangements, so some day someone will make an absolute fortune covering his songs with sugary flourishes but, as Joe declares with a provocative jut to his chin, 'It won't be me!'.
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I bet Joe dreams of the outbreak of the Second Spanish Civil War so that he can go off and fight in it, but somewhere along the way he became fascinated by the topic of Word War I, the inhuman waste of it all and the outrage of its having been one bunch of working class lads fighting another, so he wrote Music from Potter's Field which is a collection of truly excellent and revisionist new Great War songs inspired by Graham Rhodes' play Potter's Field, where three scarecrows converse across a Flanders field.
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Listen to Peace \u2013 one of my absolute favourites but, to be honest, listen to any of them.
I don't know how Joe bumped into the author Andy Wilson but they quickly decided to write a collection of short stories together around these songs, and the first set has been published as Stories from Potter's Field with Andy on narrative and Joe on lyrics primarily but with contributions to the stories as well.
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Now, addressing the First World War must be about the most difficult task any writer can undertake.
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What happened was so appalling, and those trenches are so well trodden, it is very hard to say anything about any of it beyond 'ditto' or 'Amen', so I was a bit wondering whether Andy and Joe would be meeting their own Battle of the Somme or be Wipered out entirely, so to speak, on this project.
Well, no. Indeed they have survived their self-imposed impossible task rather well by creeping up on it from different and unexpected angles. No massive bombardment and 'Over the top, lads!' strategy for them.
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Yes, some of the stories are straight Dazed and Confused in No Man's Land sagas, but they also cover shocking stories of what happened to conscientious objectors press-ganged over to France and of people deemed to be deserting merely because they lost their rifles when a shell dropped on their head, as well as putting the events of 1914-18 into context with what happened in Hull during WW2 and later developments in social values which mocked the insane heroism of that most ridiculous and atrocious of wars.
In short, Stories from Potter's Field is a consuming authentic read which isn't just 'more of the same'. It is also a plea for humanity, and we can all have more of that.
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| What's Happening? |
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| Chill Out |
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