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But if you take the rest of the CD on it's own terms, it's pretty interesting. Hutchings and Collins were trying to revitalize traditional English music, which they saw as moribund and endangered by the spread of American and Celtic music. The result is so unrepentantly unabashedly English that for a Yank like myself, and I suspect for many English listeners as well, it's almost exotic, like a kind of world music, as foreign-sounding in it's whiter-than-white way as the latest disc out of Mali or Tuva. They're not afraid of concertinas or fol-a-diddle fol-a-day choruses here. But, for my money, they make them work. It doesn't sound corny, it sounds rootsy-English roots, mate. We're not talkin' uptight repressed bowler hat and umbrella British English, we're talkin' earthy peasant English, singing for pints in the pub dancing round the May Pole bringing in the sheep screwing in the hay English. And some of the melodies are really beautiful, particularly The Banks of the Bann (with Shirley's sister Dolly on piano) and Just as the Tide Was Flowing (given a more rocked-out treatment twenty years later by 10,000 Maniacs).
Shirley is in fine voice (she describes her voice in the accompanying notes as "moldy and strange, but at least it's my own", which is a very fair assessment), although she does get buried a bit on the louder songs-she's no Sandy Denny. Her voice is more fragile, but that fragility can make it very affecting. It has a salt of the earth quality that I find very appealing, and it is of course quite, quite English.
The arrangements are excellent-varied and very evocative, with interesting mixes of instruments (electric guitar, medieval instruments, accordion, even the sound of a horse-drawn cart on one song) but they're a little tight-not a lot of soloing, which is, again, a bit of a disappointment given the fact that Richard Thompson is on board. But I think the idea was to keep the focus on the songs rather than on soloists.
Ashley Hutchings was married to Shirley Collins and brought the band together as a backing group for Shirleys new album "No Roses". Shirleys lovely untrained voice would have been drowned by a totally electric band and a lot of the band were specifically accoustic. The band included, Greg Butler (later of Strawhead) on Serpent, Richard Thompson on guitars, Ashley Hutchings on bass, Tim Renwick also on guitars. Also, among the backing singers was one Maddy Prior.
I still have the album on vinyl and still occasionally listen to it. Songs like, Just as the Tide was a flowing, Maria Marten (The murder in the Red Barn), Claudy Banks, Hal an Tow including accompaniment by Jaws harp and hammered dulcimer, as only Shirley Collins could sing them.
A classic Folk Album.
There's nothing slick or refined about the songs here. They have a ragged, woosy, English charm, which is insightful and charming. As you will see from the cover there is a cast of thousands here. The likes of Ashley Hutchings, Nic Jones, John Kirkpatrick, Mady Prior et al, are all here and playing together ensemble for the benefit of the song rather than egos.
Standout tracks, well basically all of them. 'Banks Of The Bann', 'Hal and Tow', 'Dieman's Land', I could go on. I have not stopped playing this record!!!!!.
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