Album Reviews  -  Mid December 2002 to mid-January 2003

Reviews of wyrd-folk albums

In this section reviews of albums will be added regularly.  Once they have been shown for a while they will move into the old reviews area.  The artists database which is coming soon will also contain all album reviews for easy use.  Please scroll down for links to the other areas.   Reviewed albums may be purchased using the 'On-line Retailers' section of the Useful Information area.  If you have trouble finding an album let me know using the 'Meet the ...' link under 'Lord of Misrule' and I'll be happy to help.  Click any of the small thumbnail sleeves to enlarge.

Latest Reviews        Archived Reviews Nov-Dec 2002    Archived Reviews Aug - Oct 2002

Reviews currently on this page (click on the hyperlinks below or scroll down the page to read).

Etchingham Steam Band - s/t    Windows Media player 7 plus users listen to a song now

Review by Mark Coyle    Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1974 Fledg'ling Records

After the formative line up of The Albion Country Band fell apart with a classic album unreleased Ashley Hutchings had of course to continue providing some kind of income to his family.  Disenfranchised as he was with the music industry he and his wife the important folk singer Shirley Collins formed an impromptu part-time band to honor existing gig commitments and allow them to continue playing live which then burgeoned into something entirely its own even leading to their playing the Albert Hall in London.  This band complemented their bass and vocals with Ian Holder on accordion, Terry Potter and later Vic Gammon on concertina and Shirley hitting a bell laden child's hobby horse for percussion.  The name was taken from their home location in Sussex and the fact that the power strikes forced cut outs forcing the band to use steam as an alternative.  The name fitted the venture perfectly which was directed entirely towards an English traditional folk music mixing songs with instrumentals.  The album collects together various live performances during their short life from 1974 to 1975.  By this time Ashley was entirely focused on traditional music and a spin-off Albion Morris troupe had even been formed from his earlier bands. 

If you come to wyrd-folk form a purely psychedelic or pagan interest then this album may prove to be not to your immediate taste.  However with the benefit of time we can now see this is perhaps one of the artists purest traditional albums being highly evocative and a portrait of a music that was even then old and antiquated.  Age is however no statement of quality and it is wonderful that this album sounds so warm and vibrant.  The settings for Shirley's voice on such as 'Hard Times Of Old England' and 'Horn Fair' are more alive and joyful than some of her more stark solo material, bringing empathy and warmth that is often quite moving.  There is an element of fun and enjoyment here, music made purely for its own sake that comes across listening to it all these years later.  Some of the songs like 'Gaol Song' sound very rustic with the kind of lyrics that make younger listeners cringe but do provide an authentic back to the music of country dances from many decades before.  All the time there is a balance of musical enjoyment in the community revels and dances contrasted by the despairing living conditions of harshness, injustice and disease that the other of these songs tell of.

On tracks like 'Horn Fair' there is an gentle sensuality, a swaying implied saucy quality that is often lost in modern folk music.  Songs like 'Come All You Little Streamers' are literally like being beamed back to an earlier age.  The musicians are of absolute top quality being part of the folk music scene so the instrumentation and of course the instrumentals are excellent, being performed in a way that is sympathetic but also second nature to the performers. You can feel the warmth from the audience on songs such as 'Adderbury Wassail Song' and 'Black Joker' that while often short seem to genuinely bring together the performers and audience in a magical way.  To lose yourself and get back to the origins of folk music, to the unfetted traditional sound this is a wonderful source.  if you enjoy the music of Shirley Collins, Ashley Hutchings or just want to understand the evolution of British folk music this is a minor classic of its kind that repays your interest and provides songs that you will return to over and again.

To read more about the evolution of UK 1970s folk-rock that led to this album click here.

Waterson Carthy - A Dark Light    Windows Media player 7 plus users listen to a song now

Review by Mark Coyle    Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 2002 Topic Records

This album was released during the later part of 2002 and received warm reviews from the music press but there is a problem that faces the music industry in an enduring band such as this.  The industry is based around relatively short artist lifecycles with varying levels of quality providing the reviewer with a rise and fall that can easily be tracked.  However the Watersons now as Waterson Carthy (reflecting Martin's unique contribution) have been recording and performing since the mid 1960s and have had no discernable dip in quality.  Indeed they are perhaps even above such reviewer criticism being more knowledgeable about the music they make than almost any reviewer.  Also unless the reviewer is a specialist they have little comment to make about the music as they either don't understand or enjoy such music.  So we receive uninformed reviews that give praise to the family and the music without providing any real insight.  It also makes the band difficult to promote they have a huge back catalogue, most of which is wonderful and this is the latest release in consistent musical style.  So the album will sell to traditional folk fans who buy just about everything on Topic Records but it should be crossing over to fans who are exploring folk-rock, enjoying people like Cara Dillon and Kate Rusby and those who are maturing and enjoying music for its merits rather than fashionable dictate.

If there is any kind of alternative folk scene of which this site could be deemed to be a part, then the Waterson family has often been admired and revered without much actual recourse to their music.  This is because like Shirley Collins they make an unrestricted uncompromising form of folk music that is a continuation of traditional musical forms without introducing gimmick or novelty.  This makes it fairly stark and provides little in the way of entry for a casual listener.  Daughter of Norma and Martin Carthy, Eliza is of course pivotal to the band and with her evolving cross-over potential may bring some listeners but the varied textures of her own solo releases are here left behind as the band go literally back to the music's source.  On this release the band go back to perform the songs they variously discovered back in the 50s and 60s from folk archivists such as A A Loyd and Cecil Sharp and also from  source singers such as Seamus Ennis whose 'Devil and the Farmer' starts the album.  Musically the album seeks to present the songs as they would originally have been performed but with the playing informed where appropriate by subtle modern techniques.  Eliza plays violin, Martin guitar, Tim van Eyken melodeons with all four singing solo or in harmony as required.  There do not seem to be many overdubbed layers but the players combine in innovative and thrilling ways to give a wide variety of backings.

'Devil and the Farmer' has a surging, driven violin backing complemented by melodeon and sung by Martin.  'May Morning' has a delicate melodic instrumentation with plucked guitar and a fantastic soaring vocal from Eliza.  'Death and the Lady' as well as the trademark harmony vocals has a dark, almost blues quality with very clever hints of violin providing a ghostly atmosphere and slide guitar hinting at the Delta (the Norfolk Broads Delta perhaps!).  It also seems to share a melody with the hymn 'To Be A Pilgrim'.  When Norma sings 'The Outlandish Knight' solo it almost takes your breath away as always wondering where such a voice came from and listening to the inflections and touches.  The Morris dance music starting with 'Balancy Straw' are fierce and passionate making the listener feel there are many more musicians than the three we are actually hearing.  'The Lofty Tall Ship' has an excellent vocal from Martin.  'Holland Handkerchief' starts with a solo blues-folk guitar refrain and has a swaying, searching vocal from Norma.  'The Old Churchyard' is a community vocal type songs, unaccompanied and all the more direct and powerful in this instance for it.  'Crystal Spring' is light of touch with a joint lead vocal from Norma and Eliza.  'Diego's Bold Shore' surprisingly starts with Eliza playing piano, in a stately parlor room way that seems to evoke a 1920s sitting room.  This is soon joined by her lilting, almost wistful vocal and later a gently mournful cello.  The last track 'Shepherds Arise' is a call to the day underpinned by fiddle and the group singing in a thrilling way dropping down to a single singer for a few bars than coming back en mass.  Oliver Knight (son of the deceased Lal Waterson) does an excellent job in capturing this music and allowing it to sound contemporary and ancient at the same time. 

So we close the album and returning to the original theme of the review, if this band had not endured as it has the album would be claimed as a 'grand return' or like Malinky being a new band would be a 'new masterpiece' (with no slight meant to Malinky).  As it is we should be thankful that such consistent and inventive quality is still being produced in an industry that simply cannot appreciate the jewels it already has.

Albion Country Band - Battle of the Field    Windows Media player 7 plus users listen to a song now

Review by Mark Coyle    Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK recorded 1973, released 1976 Island Records

From the Fairport Convention album 'Lief and Liege' bass player Ashley Hutchings became increasingly dedicated to exploring English traditional folk music.  Leaving the legendary folk-rock band he co-founded Steeleye Span and then after their second line-up left to form a band that would allow him to focus on his ever growing interest.  He formed a one-off band to back his wife Shirley Collins on her 'No Roses' album and also produced albums of Morris music and helped Lal and Mike Waterson on their classic 'Bright Phoebus'.  His mission though was to form a band that could give traditional English songs a contemporary setting and this became 'The Albion Country Band' which played many gigs in 1973 and then broke up with this album unreleased.  However Ashley Hutchings carried on with 'The Etchingham Steam Band' and then revived this band as 'The Albion Dance Band' focusing on more up-tempo traditional folk dance music.  Their popularity caused a strong interest in this unreleased album which three years late was then issued. 

Martin Carthy joined Ashley Hutchings in the band having also been in the second line up of 'Steeleye Span'.  John Kirkpatrick the Morris based concertina and accordion musician and his wife Sue Harris were also on board. Ashley had recently worked with John on the classic 'Morris On' and 'Complete Dancing Master' albums so by now they had an excellent music interaction between them.  Simon Nicol also previously with Ashley in Fairport Convention was on board providing within folk terms an all-star line up.  Steve Ashley had been on board for the early live line-up but left and recorded his own classic 'Stroll ON' on which the Albion Country Band reunited on one track.

The music is like an acoustic version of the 'Lief and Liege' Fairports merged with Ashley's Morris band line-ups.  We also see an album cover that perfectly evokes a mythical rural idyll but with a title that connects back to the hard working experience of the working man.  'Albion Sunrise' shows off the new broad tonal palette moving from acoustic sections with lyrics such as 'the faded flower of England will come and rise again' which is not intended to be nationalistic but to try and revive the concept of English as distinct in some way having its own heritage as this as tended to become submerged in the concept of Britishness..  The Morris Medley has a stately feel with a calling-on lyric, oboe and the reeds working in harmony, acoustic guitar and a kind of phasing bass guitar before a heavier drum driven selection of tunes with searing electric guitar.  The band's version of 'I Was A Young Man' has chiming electric guitars and is slightly more rock oriented than many of the tracks but with the backing melody carried by oboe and supported by excellent clever drum work from Roger Swallow.  "New St George' is an important powerful stirring track as it became a kind of on-stage battle cry for the band at the time.  This was written by Richard Thompson who performed in the early line-ups of the band as was 'Albion Sunrise'.  It's lyrics seek to free the working people from their industrial bondage and offer some kind of relief through dance and feels like a genuine call to arms.  "Leave your factory, leave the forge and dance to the new St George'.  This song was a springboard on stage for instrumental invention and the same is true here moving into 'La Rotta' with a churning rhythm and a pulsing rock feel.

In the sixth track there is perhaps the first English oboe and concertina jig ever.  In 'Hanged I Shall Be' this dark, plaintive ballad is beautifully rendered with an understated somber tone giving way to angry electric backing with Nichol really shining out with piercing guitar work.  The jaunty "Reaphook and Sickle' is a strictly authentic old fashioned version that points to the archival work of Hutchings on 'Rattlebone and Ploughjack' and refers to the Lal and Mike Waterson album with the lyrics 'we'll reap and skip together until Bright Phoebus'.  There is also a haunting detuned Dulcimer played by Nicol here that makes the song sound decades old ad is highly innovative.  'Battle of the Somme' notes the battle that helped to wipe out a generation of young men also causing huge detriment to the preservation of folk customs and music.  This is an intense instrumental with the drums thundering and cymbals seething like the sound of bombs.

This song ends the album which listened to now is consistent throughout and provides many of the ideas that individually the members would go on to explore further.  It would have been a lost classic and the reviewer is grateful that it was issued albeit belatedly.  This album was musically innovative and is still highly enjoyable and recommended to all those exploring the evolution of folk-rock.

More information about the evolution of folk-rock and this band can be obtained if you click here.

Arthur (Lee Harper) - Dreams and Images    Windows Media player 7 plus users listen to a song now

Review by Mark Coyle    Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

US 1967 & 1969 Nocturne

This is a relatively obscure artist from the US who recorded two albums in the late 1960s and then one more in the mid 1970s.  The first and most known two are collected here on one reissued CD and were produced by Lee Hazlewood, the famous arranger and musician of the period.  These two albums are introspective loner folk-based music with a whimsical acoustic song of guitar and gently yearning vocals complemented by understated strings and woodwinds.  These songs have a distant, late night quality being simple and rather delicate in style.  On the first album there is perhaps a doomed romantic aspect with the instruments providing a touch of chamber music to the songs.  Fans of Melanie, early Simon and Garfunkal or UK musicians like Duncan Browne would probably enjoy the songs a lot.  Lyrically the album is often hippie fey such as on 'Sunshine Solider' with it's fugal horn and electric organ.  However at this distance this is perhaps charming rather than irritating.  Songs such as 'A Friend Of Mine' are quietly moving and realised in a quite beautiful way.

If there is a genre of 'ambient folk chamber music' then this would be its prime exponent.  Like Love or Tim Buckley there is also a quest to explore different arrangements and instruments with 'Open Up The Door' having a dulcimer sound trying to be like a harpsichord.  'Dreams and Images' introduces mysterious flute melodies.  'Pandora' has a dream like quality with electric piano, cello and an air of strangeness.  'Wintertime' is gorgeous seasonal folk with a simple, direct arrangement of guitar, plucked strings and violin.

On the second album the hippie whimsy seems to have turned more to protest with 'new day, revolution, new day, everybody is arming' lyrics from the off. The music is a little more folk-rock though still fairly light in touch but with more obvious electric guitar, drums and violin.  Unfortunately the second album doesn't have the variety of the first and instead carries on the light folk-rock throughout with a protest element, however this isn't exactly MC5.  'Strange Song' stands out as more like the first album but with somewhat annoying religious lyrics that the do not do justice to the melody such as 'come recreation, save the nation'.

There is little wrong with these folk-rock backings but the voice is just to fey to carry them off, it needs the soaring roaring quality of a Tim Buckley or Sandy Denny and often the arrangements do not carry a strong melody.  On 'Annie Moore' there is piercing fuzz guitar that seems to liven up the track considerably and add a missing component allowing the voice not to carry the melody and work much better.  On 'I/Soldier/Time Love' we see the vocalist more obviously trying to copy Tim Buckley but without the same depth of personality.  'Eleanor' harks back to the first album and it's a poised ballad of wonderful quality though perhaps by now it is out of place on the more jazzy folk-rock second album.

I imagine these will be promoted as 'psych folk' or something similar and while there is perhaps a whiff of illegal substances this isn't psychedelia but folk based pop music sometimes of exquisite quality.  It reminds often of early Tir Na Nog, Heron or Waterfall (reviewed in this site) and is worth picking up if you like the late 60s folk pop sound.

Shelagh McDonald - Stargazer    Windows Media player 7 plus users listen to a song now

Review by Mark Coyle    Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1971 B&C

During the late 1960s and early 1970s many female folk singers appear inspired by such as Joan Baez, Sandy Denny, Anne Briggs and Melanie.  Shelagh McDonald from Scotland was one such singer and one of rare talent.  It is therefore sad that little is known of her and that she only made two albums before seeming to disappear.  Her first album in 1970 was a well received folk album that sat between contemporary and traditional styles and managed the tricky task of being accepted by both of these camps.  The second album had high expectations and a number of the songs appeared in embryonic form on compilation albums popular during the period.  Artists such as Dave Mattacks and Danny Thompson provide instrumental support providing a top quality backing.

Upon listening to the album the listener is immediately taken with the pure strong voice which while having folk credibility also seems to reach out in a more general way.  The songs themselves are generally at the popular end of folk with backing singers and singer-songwriter popular arrangements rather than being traditional in nature.  'Rod's Song' at the start is typical of this and is surprisingly up-tempo.  Each song is guided by acoustic guitar or piano supporting the vocal excellently such as on the second song 'Liz's Song'.  'Lonely King' is a pensive slow ballad with solo piano.  'City's Cry' starts an ordinary folk ballad before eerie cello enters briefly joined by Danny Thompson's bass.  'Dowie Dens of Yarrow' is particularly interesting as it is a folk-rock version of the traditional song more typical of the Sandy Denny line-up of Fairport Convention than a solo artist.  It commences with organ, guitar and cymbal washes before Dave Mattacks begins his rolling exploratory tom tom work along with a subdued but probing bass line.  The vocal is entrancing, searching amongst the words and carrying this more powerful tune with ease.  'Canadian Man' has a lovely melody based around vocal and piano that reminds strongly of later Kate Bush on her 'Woman's Work' album.  'Good Times' has a rolling languid folk-pop feel with organ and saxophone that is similar to Van Morrison.  'Odyssey' is a longer work that moves from simple folk into more rocky sections with electric guitar soloing and is in the style of artists like Trees.

On the last track of the album 'Stargazer' the artist reaches a pinnacle with a string led slower song accentuated by piano with a beautiful understated vocal performance.  This song reaches out in a way that not many are able to.  The strings are arranged by Robert Kirby of Nick Drake fame but here are more dramatic and emotional, rising and falling with the flow of the music.  At 2:44 deep massed male vocals join providing a kind of choir which then expands with strings and female voices into a stunning crescendo of devastating emotional power.  this track seems fairly unique in folk music, indeed if it were not for the melody line it would not be classified as folk music. 

On the CD of the album  the album is completed with versions of a number of songs from compilation albums and left over sessions.  'Road to Paradise' is a driving up-tempo rocky song.  'Sweet Sunlight' is a piano and vocal song notable for an excellent melody.  'Spin' goes through two increasingly rocky versions that shows the artists may have evolved into something entirely different is she had continued to record.

So overall we have an excellent progressive folk album that stretches the form into new forms taking in rock and orchestral music.  In using the piano comprehensively it is fairly unique for the time.  On some tracks such as 'Dowie Dens of Yarrow', 'Odyssey' and especially 'Stargazer' she achieves a unique sound and it is a shame that there are not any further albums to continue the development of this now mysterious and missed artist.

Lal and Mike Waterson - Bright Phoebus    Windows Media Player 7 and above play a track on-line

Review by Mark Coyle       Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1972 Leader Records

The early nineteen seventies was a period of profound change for British folk music as traditional and electric music came together to form a new composite whole.  Many rock artists had moved towards folk music and rediscovered traditional songs which became their catalogue for amplification.  However precisely as bands such as Steeleye Span were doing this many long standing traditional artists were commencing to write their own music based on traditional conventions.  The music would meet somewhere in the middle and now from this distance it is a somewhat artificial debate.  At the time it was one of fierce debate with modern and traditional folk clubs opposing each other and artists not crossing from one area to the other.  As this site shows there was a creative cross fertilisation happening that would transform and illuminate folk music forever.

As part of the Watersons family Lal and Mike Waterson were already legends before they came to make this pivotal album.  The Waterson family of traditional unaccompanied singers was and is perhaps the most widely known family based folk artists.  With this album they sought to evolve from the unaccompanied, simple traditional singing and write songs of their own inspiration within the folk idiom that could stand next to the standards of the time using the recording possibilities available to them.

It is perhaps not spoiling the rest of the album review to say that they succeeded entirely and created a folk music classic album that has only recently inspired an unofficial follow up recording the songs and demos they made by sympathetic artists.  The album draws together a wide range of folk artists to provide instrumental support.  So the first song sees Tim Hart and Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span along with their colleague Ashley Hutchings along with three of his ex-Fairport Convention colleagues.  'The Scarecrow' has the joint guitar playing of both Martin Carthy and Richard Thompson.   This album represents the direct evidence of the cross fertilisation between traditional and electric folk artists and it seems there was an unofficial coming together and concerted effort to help this important album be created.

"Bright Phoebus" refers to the sun with the symbol heartily faced on the cover and this gives representation to the subtle earth or pagan based element to the album that many have found.  This isn't any overt reference but a connection back to the land, to archaic customs, to the harsh life of the people that brings out these qualities.  The music weaves the folk rock of the early seventies with acoustic folk and village sounding brass and woodwinds sometimes playful, sometimes mournful.  'Rubber Band' commences the album with a bouncing ode to 'bouncing back'.  It is an accomplished but throwaway track, a settling in for the journey to come.  'The Scarecrow' is starkly gorgeous Bert Jansch style traditional folk music, the lyrics though are dark and foreboding as follows:

'As I walked out one winter's day,

I saw an old man hanging

From a pole in a field of clay.

His coat was gone his head hung low

'Till the wind flung it up to look,

Wrung its neck and let it go'.

'Fine Horseman' is highly similar in style to Mr Fox with a deeply traditional, unnerving vocal from Lal Waterson that reminds of Carolanne Pegg.  The music is mournful, somber acoustic folk music weaving a hypnotic spell with circling oboe from Sue Kirkpatrick (wife of accordion player John).  The lyrics reveal little with a sense of mystery and something withheld.  'Danny Rose' is a form of English country music, clearly British in origin but using a subtle twang and shuffle associated with country.  'Child Among The Weeds' is another Lal led dark ballad that is beguiling and entrancing.  I hope it is not perceived as insulting if I say that this song is like listening to a remote witch sing her enchantment.  The song drops to just Mike singing the following in confident but lonesome style:

'Fly bird fly on your raven wing

Take to the skies and sing

For the love of wheeling and turning'

Then the song goes back to the main descending chord sequence verse.  There is a strange magic here, a quite disturbing but hypnotic song.  The next song 'The Magical Man' is a full band song like the first up-tempo and like a curious bark-out song at a traveling fair.  'To Make You Stay' is a beautiful lovelorn ballad from Lal with a quite brilliant vocal performance that soars like 'River Boat' from Dando Shaft.  'Shady Lady' is sweet massed vocal mid-tempo folk-rock that reminds of later Steeleye Span.  'Red Wine and Roses' is a lovely very traditional song from co-Watersons and family member Norma Waterson with Martin Carthy (her husband and now Watersons member) on guitar.  It's a quite sublime performance slipped onto the album and broadening it back for a moment into the family.  The album ends with the title song 'Bright Phoebus' which radiates positivity and warmth bringing the full band back together in a slow ode using the sun as a symbol for good fortune and the revelation of each day.  This brings the classic album to a close.

By bringing together such a wide range of performers this album is a key to much of subsequent music, it draws together the first Fairport Convention line up, the Albion Country Band, Steeleye Span, the Watersons and from here your explorations can commence.  It is a crossroads signpost to both traditional and electric folk music, to the new and the arcane.

Maddy Prior and Tim Hart - Summer Solstice    Windows Media Player 7 and above play a track on-line

Review by Mark Coyle       Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1972

When this album was made the duo had already made two albums called 'The Folk Songs of Old England' and had in the interim joined the embryonic first line up of Steeleye Span driven largely by Ashley Hutchings ex of Fairport Convention.  Steeleye Span would continue the concept of traditional songs performed in an electric folk-rock setting and would go on to great popular success around the nucleus here but without Ashley Hutchings who would form the Albion Country Band.  This albums was recorded around the time of the first Steeleye Span release.  At that time they were still gigging as a duo and according to Ashley Hutchings had their own agenda, seeming ambivalent about Steeleye Span yet still being interested enough to slowly take control.  As duo they were well established but frustrated by the lack of progression and career the traditional folk club circuit offered.

For their third album the band had an excellent selection of traditional songs and the settings while empathetic are traditional in nature.  On the whole there are one or two layers of nicely played acoustic guitar with multi-tracked lead vocals from Maddy such as on the first two tracks 'The False Knight On The Road' and 'Bring Us In Good Ale'.  The version of the traditional 'Dancing At Whitsun' credited to the Cooper family is brilliant bringing in stately strings by Robert Kirby (known to many readers for his Nick Drake albums).  This has a lead from Tim Hart singing and wonderful lyrics about the passing of tradition by World War I and its remains in the Whitsun dances.  There is little trace of the Steeleye Span electric sound that they would become known for, this then is a memorial almost for their past, their last purely traditional work at that time.

Although traditional in nature the songs are easily listened to and do not have harsh or overly rustic edges to them, they remind often of Anne Briggs acoustic work.  Approachable, simple and emotive in their impact.   Perhaps the only jarring element to some casual listeners will be the short unaccompanied vocal tracks that while accurate in their depiction of traditional singing are not easily digested by ears attuned to modern popular music with it's production sheen and multi-layered approach.  "Cannily Cannily' has a beautiful mandolin that broadens the sound and 'Ploughboy and the Cockney' has a fiddle but on the whole these songs are simple in arrangement.  They do though show excellent use of sustained drone settings that heighten the movement of the vocalist such as on 'Cannily Cannily'.

On its release the album was hailed as a folk classic which caused problems for the second Steeleye Span album in having two albums out simultaneously.  Interestingly the sound here is similar to that of early Martin Carthy who would join Steeleye Span before leaving at the same time as Ashley Hutchings.

For those wishing to explore more traditionally based folk music in an accessible way I can think of no better starting point and then work back to the two preceding albums.

Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick - Prince Heathen    Windows Media Player 7 and above play a track on-line

Review by Mark Coyle       Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1969 Polygram

This album was part of a series released in the late 1960s by these two legendary artists who are still producing wonderful work.  It was recorded at a turning point for folk music.  Fairport Convention were recording their 'Leif and Liege' album which would bring electrified rock and traditional folk into a new form that became known as folk-rock.  Dave Swarbrick had joined them and would take up a leading role in that band.  Here similar musical interests to that band are shown but in a much more traditional way.  The music is simple acoustic guitar music and Dave Swarbrick's violin.  Martin Carthy had an excellent earthy element to his voice but had not yet taken on the mannered vocal style shown on some of his early to mid 1970s recordings.

It is perhaps almost impossible to disentangle this album and 'Lief and Liege' so whereas the power and dynamics of rock gave muscle to the music here it is the directness and starkness of the execution that gives the music more emphasis.  In truth the involvement of Dave Swarbrick on the album is fairly fleeting and only appears on half the tracks for example providing an atmospheric backing to their version of 'Reynardine' and soloing wildly on the title track.  As important as his musical involvement was his knowledge of folk music, the songs, melodies and traditions.  He was able to inform this album in the same way that he did Fairport Convention.

Some of the tracks are unaccompanied including strangely the long 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard'.  In this respect we can see the album as transitional.  The title track has a fierceness and almost pagan intent that is stunning with it's tale of murder and call of 'you heathen dog'  and very more in tune with the heavier sound about to come for both artists.  Interestingly "Staines Morris', an accompaniment for the dance was played many times in the 1970s by Ashley Hutchings in the Albion Country Band where he would be joined by Martin Carthy after their roles in early Steeleye Span.  Novices to folk music may find this represents part of the tradition that they have not yet become comfortable with, for those who have explored for a while it is a natural progression as you come to appreciate the starkly traditional sound more.  In the lineage of British folk music it is a key album and spans the eras of traditional music and the impending explosion through the electrification of the form.

Ashley Hutchings - Rattlebone and Ploughjack

Review by Mark Coyle       Check or Buy this album at Amazon UK     Check or buy at Amazon.com

UK 1976 Island Records

Ashley Hutchings is a pivotal figure in the re-emergence of British traditional music placed into it's original country based context.  He was a founder member of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span but had left both and formed the Albion Country Band originally to back his wife Shirley Collins on her 'No Roses' album but then it became his vehicle to realise British traditional music in a dynamic, electric setting.  This became his life's musical work evolving into the Etchingham Steam Band, Albion Dance Band and then the enduring Albion Band.  Although it is tempting to think of the bulk of his work as 'solo' this is not correct as artists such as John Kirkpatrick played a vital role themselves in these ventures.  The most direct presentation of a purely English traditional music was his first solo album and archival work "Rattlebone and Ploughjack".

This album weaves together two long tapestries of traditional music moving from spoken word to music and back.  It presents the original sounds of British festivals, revels and customs.  These include various specified Morris Dancers, Hobby Horses, Plough Monday, Hornpipe dances, gypsies, reels and Tudor step dances.  The tracks are field recordings from many decades, there is speculation that some are recreations but if this is the case the joins do not show.  It's a definitive work, a library of such traditions preserved and more importantly alive for the listener.

Listening to the music here there are no traces of folk-rock for which Hutchings was known.  This is a work that sought to capture an English musical heritage before it was lost, the original English folk music.  The music is often simple, minimal and stark, often just a few acoustic instruments such as accordion, fiddle, percussion.  The vocals are not professional and are not produced, this is music from the country as it was made, crude, direct, archaic and sometimes chaotic.  Listening to the album is genuinely like stepping back hundreds of years, it is a composite peek into another era.  Not only is it a wonderful if unique work, it is a treasure of British archival recording.  When you listen to this now strange music and are transported back to the curious customs and festivals, traces of pagan origins seeping through we connect the modern and ancient, magic and work of the ordinary person in a vibrant way.