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Not only is James Yorkston a writer of great original songs, he’s also a master interpreter of traditional folk songs. He’s also a pretty hot live act, which I witnessed at Central Station Wrexham a few years ago.
Here he teams up with The Big Eyes Family Players (players he’s met on his many travels apparently – getting one of their CDs at a gig) to unleash material from the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland, and one from Galicia, in north west Spain.
The 11 re-workings of popular folk songs, which he’d been planning since 2000/1 prove that Yorkston is still on top of his game, and one thing that never ceases with the Scotsman is, his deadpan vocal accounts. For sometime he’d been listening to songs on cassettes and CDs by luminaries of the genre like Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, Jean Richie, Nic Jones, Eliza Carthy and Nancy Kerr, with many of them coming from the 60s folk revival. Some have been adapted or tweaked to Yorkston’s preferences, so no harm done there.
It has to be said he hasn’t sonically chosen the most uplifting of songs, with a sombre mood streaming through the much of the collection, such as longing and sadness found on Just As The Tide Was Flowing (lyrics 19th Century, tune dating back further).
Some are perkier than others like I Went To Visit The Roses and slightly less so, but equally as fascinating, as the Spanish instrumental piece with gorgeous gypsy-like violin, and the (almost) frenetic Irish shuffle of Mary Connaught & James O’Donnell with Yorkston writing a new melody and arrangement.
The gentle opening instrumental sequence instantly transports you back to a time way back, soon followed by Yorkston’s plaintive singing while the instruments tinkle away on the this sublime Anne Briggs classic, (about hunting a hare) originally from Northern Ireland circa 1770 with attributed authorship to James Sloan of Ballyrock.
He recorded a bluegrass breakdown version of Thorneymoor Woods for Radio 3’s Late Junction, whereas he’s gone for a more “sedate” and more indigenous cut here.
Messing with the melody again, he does a beguiling and tender cover of the 16th century Little Musgrove, probably the top cover on the collection – absolutely gorgeous – with swooning violin sweeps.
Another he’s changed the melody “a wee bit” for is the fantastic Rufford Park Poachers, with the interesting inclusion of a pedal steel ghosting the background.
Closer, Low Down In The Broom, was an afterthought – rattled out quickly, and a belting way to close an stupendous compilation.
1. Hills Of Greenmoor
2. Just As The Tide Was Flowing
3. Martinmas Time
4. Mary Connaught & James O’Donnell
5. Thorneymoor Woods
6. I Went To Visit The Roses
7. Pandeirada de Entrimo
8. Little Musgrave
9. Rufford Park Poachers
10. Sovay
11. Low Down In The Broom
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