EVELYN LAURIE AND NEIL THOMSON – Silver Threads (own label STPEN10001)

Silver ThreadsBefore I heard this CD I knew two things about Paisley. Firstly, of course, was the famous pattern and secondly was that it was Gerry Rafferty’s home town. Subtitled Songs Of Paisley, Silver Threads is an impressionistic view of the town, its people and its history. The songs are a mixture of originals with some words borrowed from the work of local poets such as Robert Tannahill and covers by contemporary writers.

Laurie sets the ball rolling with ‘Keep Your Eye On Paisley’, an upbeat appraisal of her home town which takes its title from a remark by Benjamin Disraeli. It covers a lot of ground but I do find rhyming “amaze ye” with Disraeli a bit grating. John Russell wrote the words of ‘Espedair Burn’ which at the time was heavily polluted by the outflow from local factories and prone to flooding. Incidentally, it shares its name with Ian Banks’ novel, Espedair Street also partly set in Paisley. Banks doesn’t get a mention here.

Ewan McVicar wrote ‘Shift And Spin’ which was later claimed to be about the Dundee jute mills (possibly reflecting a measure of Scottish snobbery) and ‘Bonnie Wee Well’ comes from an old poem by journalist Hugh MacDonald who wrote in praise of the Gleniffer Braes and their views across the Clyde and beyond. Now, like the conjurer reaching the great reveal, we reach the famous pattern, starting with Danny Kyle’s ‘Music Of The Loom’ – clearly a more delicate rhythm than the Lancashire looms. Laurie wrote ‘Sweet Dianthus’, the flower at the heart of the pattern.

Thomson is the multi-instrumentalist at the heart of their arrangements augmented by the fiddles of Chris Adam and Fiona Cuthill and Angus Lyon on piano. At times the music is very folky with Thomson’s low whistle, guitar and bouzouki but at others it takes on the feel of a smooth pop ballad. Thompson’s setting of Tannahill’s ‘Braes Of Glennifer’ straddles both styles. To close his segment, he composed and plays ‘Pickled Pear’, the nickname given to the pattern in Victorian times.

Laurie composed the next two songs. ‘Spinning’ delves into the history of spinning in Paisley which began with a trumped-up witchcraft trial and the appropriation of ideas and machinery from Flanders. At the heart of this tale is the local laird’s daughter and her mother but the protagonist of ‘Tatabella’ comes from the opposite end of the social scale being a midden mavis – perhaps best not to ask.

Finally, Thompson is back in the driving seat, firstly with the lovely whistle instrumental, ‘Theme For Paisley’ and secondly with the album’s title track celebrating the work of the weavers and a bit more history in the story of an early example of industrial action in Scotland. I learned a great deal about Paisley as I listened to Silver Threads and I was also greatly entertained.

Dai Jeffries

Artists’ websites: www.evelynlaurie.com  www.neilthomson.co.uk

Evelyn Laurie: ‘Keep Your Eye On Paisley’ – official video:

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