Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan was in many eyes (including mine) one of the most important and influential albums of all time. Half the songs had an electric band backing and the lyrics were personal, surreal and poetic and couldn’t have been further from protest song. It was released in March 1965 […]
In October 2014 The Tony Burt Band performed at the Granary in Leominster for one of Norrie Davies’s famous curry nights. We managed to record most of one set and although it’s not of pristine quality it is quite listenable. I’ve decided to share a few of the tracks as they give a good idea […]
I am a big fan of many well known songwriters including, of course, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen and many more. But there are also several less famous songwriters I enjoy just as much as the legends. One of these is Canadian Bruce Cockburn. He’s been releasing albums since the early 70s and his […]
There’s a bit of a story about this song as it resulted from a songwriting technique I learned from Christine Collister in 2013 at Moniack Mhor near Loch Ness. I was attending my first ever songwriting workshop and Steve Tilston and Christine were our guides. Steve concentrated on the musical side of things and Christine […]
Although I mostly perform songs I have written myself these days I still have a few covers I trot out when in the mood. I’ve always been a massive Dylan fan but first got to know this Dylan song via Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll. This was in the 60s and of course their recording […]
Here’s a song for the coming season. I find a lot of my songs refer to the seasons or weather or the passing of time. I guess they are classic topics for both songs and poems so shouldn’t really be surprised. Between 1973 and 2005 I only wrote two songs although I was busy making […]
THE STONED CHERRIES – BAKED IN A PIE New CD released by Bromyard Folk Rock Band Popular Bromyard-based Folk Rock band, the Stoned Cherries, have released their first CD, “Baked In A Pie”. It is a lively and enjoyable mix of traditional tunes and largely original songs and is a close representation of their live […]
Sometimes I will write a song with a different well known song as its starting point. I don’t mean copying it or ripping it off in any way but more so taking inspiration from it. Those of you who know my song “Marching On” may not be entirely surprised to learn it was prompted by […]
Here is a relatively new song I have yet to record or even perform in public: “Mary Didn’t Want To Come To London”. In all honesty I am a bit ambivalent about it as it deals with some pretty serious and grisly issues. It is, at least on the surface, about an imaginary terrorist attack […]
Five String Hammer was written in June 2017 at Halsway Manor in Somerset by Monica Shepherd and Tony Burt. It’s an interesting example of a co-written song so I’ll try to give a bit of insight of how it came about. I’d never written a song with another person until I started attending songwriting workshops […]