The year has turned and it’s wonderful to be able to begin this post with SAM CARTER, a singer of traditional songs and those written in what was called the idiom of the people. The Oakham Poachers is a collection of five such songs performed with voice and acoustic guitar with admirable directness and absence of frills.
Sam begins with Jean Ritchie’s ecological plea, ‘Now Is The Cool Of The Day’, and the final verse about keeping the people free seems particularly relevant now. Some versions of this song are very pretty and thoughtful but Sam turns it into a demand. The title track is a popular traditional song sometimes called ‘The Bold Poachers’. The story is similar to the one told in ‘Rufford Park Poachers’ although the songs are quite different.
‘Tubal Cain’ began life as a poem by Charles Mackay with music now by Sam Carter. It is an odd story. Tubal Cain was a direct descendent of Adam and Eve and noted in the Bible as the first blacksmith. He is the originator of the idea of turning swords into ploughshares and is honoured among freemasons as a sort of father figure. Sam’s version of ‘Long Time Travelling’ is particularly lovely with cascading high notes. It’s found in The Sacred Harp where it is known as ‘White’ and it often taken as a funeral hymn. Finally, ‘The Light Guitar’ picks up on the style of ‘Long Time Travelling’ and is the one track to which frills have been added.
https://samcartermusic.co.uk/
We are a bit tardy with this one – it’s not terribly Christmassy and got put aside probably for that very reason. Foxtrot In A Pint Pot is the debut EP by Manchester singer/songwriter STE MORRIS and is well suited for these pre-apocalyptic days. Growling guitar leads the way into a song that contrasts the everyday concerns of ordinary people with global events. What is the proper reaction to what is happening now? Concentrate on the things that you can deal with or run screaming? It’s not really folk unless you want it to be.
‘Hit The Stream’ is slightly less in-yer-face with chugging guitar and Ste on piano again. It’s his pandemic-in-retrospect song and finally ‘Woe Is Me’ is piano-driven exploration of an evolving friendship but the big guitar sound is back well before the end. Musically it’s really exhilarating and Ste has something to say but it might just be improved by more clarity in the vocals.
https://www.facebook.com/p/Ste-Morris-Music-61573924403428/
THE WATER CHORUS are a London quartet beginning the new year with a four track EP, Scorn. The opening track links ‘We Be Soldiers Three’ with another 17th century piece, ‘The Cobbler’s Hornpipe’, and wraps it up with fragment of ‘The Good Old Way’. It’s a clever way of setting out their musical stall and their arrangements certainly make you sit up and take notice. Next comes ‘The Maid And The Palmer’ taken rather more quickly than you might be accustomed to with a boisterous bouzouki driven arrangement.
‘The Rocks Of Bawn’ is suitably mournful as it laments the hardships of a young farm labourer. There are more versions of this song than you can shake a stick atand The Water Chorus seem to have amalgamated the best bits of several to produce a text that is very much their own. This is possibly the standout track of the set. Finally, ‘Willie’s Wife’ comes from the pen of Robert Burns with music and a chorus by the band. They stick to the Scots dialect in which the poem was written and great credit goes to Caitlin Chalmers for tackling it with such dexterity.
https://www.instagram.com/waterchorusband/
‘The 6th Of January (Yasgur’s Farm)’, the new single from AMY GRANT, opens with startling chords followed by a line from Joni Mitchell. Fear not, this isn’t a reimagining of ‘Woodstock’ although it certainly harks back to that better time. “Hey mister, where’s the road to Yasgur’s Farm?” is the key line as Amy wonders if humanity has lost its way in the intervening years. This is Amy’s first new music in more than ten years, weaving Marvin Gaye and Harper’s Ferry into the story as she goes. Excellent song.
https://www.amygrant.com/
Australian singer/songwriter CARUS THOMPSON releases his new digital single in advance of his ninth solo album, When Everything Was New. ‘I Remember You’ is a leisurely song about the end of a relationship measured in small memories of clutter and unread books. There are no hard feelings, it seems.
https://carusthompson.com/neonfolk/
Her new album due in June, Tricia Duffy, aka LITTLE LORE, offers an early taster with the moody fingerpicked and suitably airy ‘Fair Weather’. Inspired by the work of Tennessee Williams, the album, Being Serafina, is named after the central character, a local seamstress in a close Sicilian community in his play ‘The Rose Tattoo’ and Duffy says the single comes from the opening scene with children talking about the flags flying at the coast guard that indicate the weather will be fine with Serafina having set the table for a romantic dinner when she plans to tell her husband that she is pregnant with their second child (“good news blooms within me/Table set for two plus one/The rose bush is growing/An infant son”). Bella Collins and Ella Tobin provide harmonies evoking the community while a clarinet is used to characterise Serafina’s husband, Rosario, the villain of the piece.
www.littlelore.co.uk
From their upcoming fourth studio album, Fear Of Emotion, Yorkshire duo SEAFRET release a new single, ‘Signal Fire’. You might label it indie-pop if it were not for the banjo lolloping along underneath the impassioned vocals about the making of connections between people. If the singles charts still meant anything this would be a hit.
https://www.seafret.com/
His first release since 2020, Nuneaton’s CHRIS TYE marks an impressive return with ‘Getting Back To The Start’ (Little Dog Music), a sweetly sung, high voiced circling fingerpicked dreamy waltzer that speaks of heart weariness (“strung out again/
Tired of the daylight”) and the struggle to reset the emotional clock (“here in a state/Slowing down in a stalemate/Stalling before every move…Needing to be someone else…spend such a long time/Getting back to the start/And then you fall apart”).
www.instagram.com/chrisytye
Canadian quintet THE McDADES release a single, ‘Peggy-O’, all banjo, fiddle and rousing percussion. There are numerous variants on the song on both sides of the Atlantic although it probably originated in Scotland as ‘The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie’. Given that The McDades sing about Fennario we can probably pin some of this on Bob Dylan. Whatever, it’s a rattling good take.
https://themcdades.com/home
From Colchester, DEAN FROST self-releases ‘Free’, a song which carried echoes of late 60s English troubadour folk in its nimble picked acoustic guitar and reflects on finding peace in the present while trusting what’s still to come (“You’re the final piece of/The puzzle I seek/I’m not in a rush now/‘Cause patience pays/And I know that you’ll come along/One of these days”).
www.facebook.com/DeanFrostMusic
With his eponymous debut album released in March, WATKIN SHARKEY from Norwich has a number of singles in the pipeline. ‘Sails’ is the first of them, stylistically redolent of Leonard Cohen with an abundance of lyrical images. It feels autobiographical.
https://www.watkinsharkey.com/
Chunky acoustic guitar and a hint of pedal steel which builds up steadily to become a key element of the arrangement heralds ‘Sometimes’ the second single by KIRSTEN MALLYON written in the depths of long Covid. Kirsten lives near Melbourne which makes this a delightful piece of Australiana.
https://www.kirstenmallyon.com/
From his new album, You’ll Land Among The Stars, our old friend THE GLEEMAN releases a single, ‘Gotta Get On’, an updated take on 50s rock’n’roll with the man’s signature brass as decoration.
https://thegleeman.co.uk/
We all give our spare time to run folking.com. Our aim has always been to keep folking a free service for our visitors, artists, PR agencies and tour promoters. If you wish help out and donate something (running costs currently funded by Paul Miles), please click the PayPal link below to send us a small one off payment or a monthly contribution.
Thanks for stopping by. Please help us continue and support us by tipping/donating to folking.com via
You must be logged in to post a comment.