This live album by New England duo Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly was recorded at three locations in their native Rhode Island. Most songs, as with their two more recent releases, are traditional, either American or brought over to America and recorded as Child Ballads. As with their previous albums, Like the Willow Tree and Where the Wild Birds Do Whistle, the most striking of the tracks are old American songs with sparse backing. The stark gems on this album include the folk hymns Bright Morning Star and We'll Camp A Little While In the Wilderness, sung in a capella harmony and The Prodical Son, with Donnelly on lead and accompanied by guitar and banjo. They remind me of a room with stark white walls, a rag rug, and a few pieces of antique walnut furniture...and plants growing in the windows.

Atwater's voice is the most interesting, with the edge and mobility of a female alternative rock vocalist, which emphasizes the bitter mood of an Appalachian version of The Four Marys (Mary Hamilton) and spices up Jean Ritchie's Young Man Who Wouldn't Raise Corn. If the album has a weakness, it is that Donnelly's tenor voice is not strong or characteristic enough to carry a song solo that does not carry on its own.

There are 17 tracks, previously unrecorded, diverse and packed in to the edge of the disc, including an original poem called Laundry, recited to a son moving out of the house at age 20 and two French Canadian stories about Uncle Boo. And Then I'm Going Home is a diverse album with such interesting content that my two younger children really love to hear it played...which means that I unfortunately had to explain just what was under The Scotsman's kilt!

Available at their home page "http://www.Atwater-Donnelly.com"

Performance ***
Sound Quality ****
Judith Gennett

When I first saw the cover I had visions of whining violins, beribboned tamborines and scratchy voices, but how wrong I was...

Of the 400,000 - 600,000 population of Hungarian Gypsies, Boyash Gypsies make up a minority of between 30,000 and 40,000. They speak their own archaic Roumanian language, have different musical traditions from other Hungarian Gypsies and live mainly in south western Hungary. The usually very poor Gypsies could not afford instruments so their music is mainly vocal with household utensils for percussion. Kanizsa Csillagai (Stars of Kanizsa) were formed in 1993 by five young Boyash and Wallachian Gypsies from Nagykanizsa. Since then they have appeared at concerts not just within Hungary but as far as Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.

Obviously Kanizsa Csillagai are more wealthy than your average Gypsy band as together with their wooden bowl and milk pitcher percussion, they have the luxury of a guitar and tambura (a long necked lute) and even a very restrained tamborine. The singing is excellent, with additional vocal 'percussion' and 'mouth-music' in the background and choruses, so although I can't understand a word of them I feel I can join in! There are translations in the CD cover notes - the songs are the normal traditional and new folk stories about life, love, lack of money, the wife running off with 2 or 3 men, and although a couple of songs are slow and sad, the majority are brought up-tempo with a guitar or tamura strum on the off-beat making even the most woe-filled lament something to dance about. Some of them start off fairly slowly and mournfully, but by the third verse the husband seems resigned to the fact that his wife has run off leaving him with three children and no money, the music has grown faster and he's ready to party - you just can't be sad listening to this CD. My only moan is that I can't stop my husband from dancing around the house - he's wearing the carpet out, we haven't got any money, the cat's just savaged our pet budgie who's eaten our last loaf of bread........ oh what the hell - Lets Party!

Justine Salmon

This recording was originally released on the Pye Record label in 1972, so some of you may well have an original copy. It was produced to tie in with a series of television programmes, and included are songs from many of the
episodes of the series.

The group's version of The Ox-Plough Song presents a full sound with some great harmonies. The Iron Horse paints a picture of someone from a simple background encountering a steam locomotive for the first time, and fair rattles along. The Durham Lockout was written by the pitman poet himself, Tommy Armstrong, and recounts the time, in 1892, when Durham miners were forced to take a wage cut. The Medley of Children's Street Songs reminds me of times when things seemed a lot more innocent. How many sing these songs
now, I wonder. Also included are the oft performed nautical song The Flash Frigate, the Music Hall humour of Ask A P'liceman, A.L. Lloyd's The Cutty Wren and Leave Them A Flower, an environmental song written by the late Wally Whyton. All in all, a worthwhile buy from a group that allowed folk music to transcend its usual boundaries by encompassing both traditional and contemporary material in their repertoire. By making the music accessible to those who hadn't previously been exposed to it, it helped many to venture into performing folk songs themselves for the first time.

Performance: ****
Recording: ****
Rick Christian

June Tabor is not a folk singer. She is an interpreter of songs, many of which come from the folk idiom. Therein lies her longevity. Opening with the Richard Thompson song, The Great Valerio, one is subjected to the almost stark quality, not only in her voice but also the production. I Wonder What’s Keeping My True Love Tonight?, a traditional song arranged by Tabor with Huw Warren, maintains the atmosphere set by the preceding track, and sound almost contemporary. Bentley And Craig, written by Ralph McTell and based on the hanging of Derek Bentley in 1953 for his involvement in the murder of a policeman, is a modern folk tale that is going to be sung and talked about for a long time to come. Di Nakht is a Yiddish song dating from 1929, and learned from Shoshana Kalisch, a survivor of Auschwitz. The contrast of the next track couldn’t be more apparent with The Fair Maid Of Islington/Under The Greenwood Tree. The Fair Maid is the usual story of a man wanting to lie with a woman, and asking her to name the price. She does, and after the duplicitious male has had his way, says he won’t pay her. Needless to say, she gets her money. Under The Greenwood Tree is a traditional instrumental arranged by Tabor and Warren again, this time with Mark Emerson, and follows the song perfectly. Then it is back to the stark atmosphere of Go From My Window and the lovely A Proper Sort Of Gardener, a song written by Maggie Holland and Jon Moore. The final cut is Shallow Brown, originally a shanty, but here suiting the slow arrangement given to it by June. The instrumental accompaniment provided by Andy Cutting (diatonic accordion), Mark Emerson (violin, viola), Mark Lockheart (clarinet, tenor and soprano saxophone), Dudley Phillips (double bass), and Huw Warren (piano, piano accordion) is first class. It’s probably one of her best albums, and I’d suggest that if you haven’t heard the name June Tabor before, or have none of her recordings, this should be the first to listen to.

Performance ****
Sound Quality ****
Rick Christian

14 tracks and nearly 50 minutes playing time, make this album worth considering as a look at what was happening in 1959 when it was originally recorded.

Opening with Aikendrum, sung to the tune used for another song Ye Jacobites By Name, but touching on a similar theme, it moves on to The False Lover Won Back. One of the ballads collected by Francis James Child, who knew of only two versions, both from Scotland. Although the song is apparently unknown in England, this isn't the case in America. The Banks Of The Nile has the common theme of the young girl wanting to go off to war, in this case the Napoleonic Wars, with her man, and prepared to dress as a soldier to do so if necessary. Glasgow Peggy touches on the story of an elopement between a lowland lass and a highland lad, and is another of the ballads collected by Child. I Loved A Lass has often been performed and recorded, but is not what I would call a definitive version on this recording. The album contains MacColl's original liner notes as well as the 1997 update by Peggy Seeger in which she reflects on the naïve attempts at experimenting with the settings of some of these songs. With Ewan on vocals, and Peggy on vocals guitar and banjo. I would think that this album is largely for purists only, or those who want to hear more by this very influential duo.

Performance: ***
Recording: ***

Rick Christian

"Two A Roue" is one of several recent Jez Lowe re-releases, the result of a by-gone alliance with songwriter and hurdy gurdy player Jake Walton. Oddly, this one arrived just after I spent a week at French music camp with a
gurdy at every turn; it is fair to say that Jake Walton's gurdy sets this release apart in a pleasant, continental, Blowzabellaish way!

The songs on "Two A Roue" are all originals by either Lowe or Walton, though some may seem traditional. The song that wins for me is "Japs and English," firstly for the wonderfully sharp banjo backdrop, and secondly
for the anti-imperialistic, anti-war motif versed as kids games. Lowe writes in the musical vernacular about miners strikes, shipwrecks, gypsies, and sometimes even romance. Both artists give modern situations a hint of
ancient musical context, as with Lowe's "Brockie Lads," a reference to those wild gypsy carnival roustabouts. Lowe has often seemed to turn over logs in a ancient serene forest to show the decomposers beneath; Walton
does likewise on this album with two environmental songs: "Trees" (I suppose about Dutch Elm Disease) and "Gold And Silver" (about, at its writing, acid rain). Conversely, some of the other songs feel more contemporary.

Sometimes Jake Walton plays accompanied tunes on the hurdy gurdy, several, like "Monferrina," being traditional Italian or Galician or English, though included is an almost salsa-ish original "Appleby Gallop." These tunes are
not just the interludes they could be, but, perhaps because the gurdy is so unusual and distinctive, actually stand out from the songs. At times he also backs the songs with the gurdy, for the most part adapting to a more
contemporary feel. The crisp mood it creates, though, carries in the arrangements even when it is not used, and this crispness makes Two A Roue one of the prettiest of Jez Lowe's albums.

www.tantobie.com

Performance:****
Sound Quality****
Judith Gennett

This collection of traditional ballads has the unifying theme of telling stories. With subject matter ranging from murder, forbidden love, the supernatural, incest, tragedy, and more besides, you might be forgiven for believing that the material came from the modern tabloid press. In fact, the thirteen tracks here were taken from the vast collection made by Professor Frances Child, and they have all been numbered accordingly should anyone wish to investigate further.

As if to show their worldwide topicality, The Bonnie Banks of Fordie, performed here by Nic Jones, has apparently been found in many other versions as far afield as Scandinavia, North America and Ireland. For John Wright’s arrangement of Matty Groves, he used the best bits from the two versions he knew, and backed by Steve Lawrence on cittern, it works extremely well.

The other standout tracks are Seven Gypsies (Gordon Tyrrall), The Lover’s Ghost (Martin Wyndham-Read), Robin Hood Rescuing The Three Squires (John Kirkpatrick), Sheath & Knife (Christine Kydd), and Young Hunting (Brian Peters).

Many of these ballads are performed unaccompanied, but where instrumentation is used, it is done in a supportive way. Included also are source references for those whishing to know more about the background to these songs.

Available from Fellside Recordings, Workington, Cumbria, CA14 3EW.

Performance ****
Sound Quality ****
Justine Salmon