Vashti Bunyan
Jennifer Vashti Bunyan (born 1945) is an English singer-songwriter. She released her debut album, "Just Another Diamond Day", in 1970. The album sold very few copies and Bunyan, discouraged, abandoned her musical career. By 2000, her album had acquired a cult following; it was re-released and Bunyan recorded more songs, initiating the second phase of her musical career after a gap of thirty years. She subsequently released two albums: "Lookaftering" in 2005, and "Heartleap" in 2014. Early life and education. Bunyan was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1945 to John Bunyan and Helen Webber, the  youngest of three children. She was told that she was named after a boat that belonged to her father, a name that was also a nickname for her mother inspired by queen Vashti. The family moved to London when she was six months old. Although she has been said to be descended from "The Pilgrim's Progress" author John Bunyan, this is a claim she has herself denied. In the early 1960s, she studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University, but was expelled for focusing on music instead of art. Musical career. 1960s. At  age 18, Bunyan travelled to New York and discovered the music of Bob Dylan through his "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album and decided to become a full-time musician. Returning to London, she was introduced to The Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham by an agent. In June 1965, under his direction, she released her first single, "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind", penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Released using simply the name "Vashti", it was backed with her own song "I Want to Be Alone". This single and her follow-up "Train Song", released on Columbia  in May 1966, produced by Canadian Peter Snell, received little attention. Also at this time, her distinctive vocal appeared on "The Coldest Night of the Year" by Twice as Much, eventually included on their second and final LP, "That's All", released by Oldham's Immediate Records in 1968. After recording additional (and unreleased) songs for Immediate Records, and making a brief appearance in the 1967 documentary "Tonite Let's All Make Love in London" with her song "Winter Is Blue", she decided to travel with her then-boyfriend Robert Lewis by horse and cart to the Hebrides to join  a commune planned by a friend, fellow singer-songwriter Donovan ("...from South London up to the Hebrides. Initially to Skye but we carried on to the Outer Hebrides."). During the trip she began writing the songs that would eventually appear on her first album, "Just Another Diamond Day". At Christmas 1968, during a break from her trip, she met Joe Boyd through a friend and he offered to record an album of her travelling songs for his Witchseason Productions. A year later, Bunyan returned to London and recorded her first LP with assistance from Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick of  Fairport Convention, Robin Williamson of The Incredible String Band and string arranger Robert Kirby. The album appeared on Philips Records to warm reviews in December 1970, but struggled to find an audience. Disappointed, she left the music industry and moved to The Incredible String Band's Glen Row cottages, then Ireland, and back to Scotland. Much of the ensuing 30 years were spent raising her three children. In this time, entirely unknown to her, the original album slowly became one of the most sought-after records of its time. It has sold online on Discogs for as much as US$ 3,946. 2000 to present. In 2000, "Just Another Diamond Day" was re-released on CD (with bonus tracks), assuring Bunyan's influence over a new generation of folk artists such as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. In 2001, Banhart wrote to her asking for her advice, beginning her connection with many of the contemporary performers who cite her work. In 2002, she was invited by Piano Magic musician Glen Johnson to sing guest vocals on his song "Crown of the Lost", her first recording in over 30 years. Since then, she has appeared on releases by Devendra Banhart and Animal  Collective. In 2005, she recorded and released her second album, "Lookaftering" on Fat Cat Records, some 35 years after her first. The album was produced by composer Max Richter and featured many of her contemporary followers including Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Adem, Kevin Barker of Currituck Co, Otto Hauser of Espers and Adam Pierce of Mice Parade. It was well received by critics and fans alike. During the autumn of 2006, Bunyan assembled an "ad hoc" band and embarked on a brief North American tour, with performances in both Canada and the US. She performed songs from both of her solo  albums, as well as some of the rare material from the unreleased Oldham sessions. Her music reached a much wider audience when "Just Another Diamond Day" was covered and used in a TV advert for T-Mobile. "Train Song" gained her further attention when it was used in 2008 by Reebok for an ad for the NFL, in 2014 as part of the soundtrack for the TV series "True Detective", as well as in 2015 as the opening credits song for the Amazon Original Series "Patriot". In 2007, she collaborated with novelist Rodge Glass on the song "The Fire" for  the compilation album "Ballads of the Book" which was devised to combine Scottish writers with Scottish singers (Bunyan lives in Edinburgh). Bunyan also provided vocals on three songs for former Jack frontman Anthony Reynolds' debut solo album "British Ballads". Bunyan sang with Reynolds on the songs "Country Girl", "Just So You Know" and "Song of Leaving". In October 2007 a compilation album of her mid-1960s singles and unreleased demos was released entitled "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind - Singles and Demos 1964 to 1967". In January 2008, Bunyan said she was in the process of recording a new album : "I'm supposed to be writing just now. I have one complete song and a whole lot of fragments. I'm supposed to have them finished by May and there's no way." In June 2008, she appeared at London's Royal Festival Hall with The Heritage Orchestra as part of Massive Attack's Meltdown, in a live performance of Vangelis' "Blade Runner" soundtrack, singing "Rachel's Song" as sung by Mary Hopkin on the original recorded soundtrack. In October 2008, a feature documentary about her, "Vashti Bunyan: From Here To Before", directed by Kieran Evans, had its world premieres  at the Times BFI London Film Festival. It retraces Bunyan's journey across the British Isles and sets it against the backdrop of her first high-profile London concert. It uses her trip through Britain as its main narrative structure. The album provides the soundtrack to that journey, just as it did the first time. In 2011, Bunyan's cover of the late John Martyn's "Head and Heart" appeared on the tribute album, "Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn". In June 2014, she announced her third and final album, "Heartleap". She wrote, "The whole point  of the album was finally to learn a way that would enable me to record the music that is in my head, by myself. I neither read nor write music, nor can I play piano with more than one hand at a time, but I have loved being able to work it all out for myself and make it sound the way I wanted. I've built these songs over years. The album wouldn't have happened any other way." "Heartleap" was released on 7 October in the U.S. via DiCristina and 6 October in the UK via FatCat Records . The cover artwork was by Bunyan's daughter, Whyn Lewis, who also did the artwork for "Lookaftering". In 2022 she published a memoir "Wayward: Just Another Life to Live" (White Rabbit Books). Reception. In 2008, Bunyan has been labelled "the Godmother of Freak Folk" for her role in inspiring the "new generation of folk experimentalists including Devendra Banhart and Adem". Her music has also been categorized as folk, psychedelic folk, or new folk. Despite these classifications, she has stated multiple times she is not a folk singer: "[...] I find it quite hard to read myself described as a folk singer , because I'm not." Her former producer Joe Boyd also underlines this in the 2008 Kieran Evans' film "From Here to Before", explaining how he never considered Bunyan to be "[...] much of a folkie".