Ashley Hutchings folk rock masterpiece available again

By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and WeptAshley Hutchings’ concept album ‘By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and Wept’ has been remastered and will be re-released on 11 November 2013. Widely considered to be Ashley’s best ever work it was originally recorded in 1987 but the original release was limited and the album was then unavailable for many years.

The album tells a very personal love story that unusually is not told from a ‘looking back’ perspective. The songs, the poems and stories were all written as the story itself was happening.  Only later did Hutchings realise that all those fragments  could come together to tell the story from start to finish. In creating the finished album Hutchings has drawn on all aspects of the arts from rock and traditional music, through poetry, history, storytelling and cinema. The result is an unfolding drama one might watch on television or at the cinema. But the images conjured by the words and music  become a personal screenplay.

“Heroic writing from Ashley Hutchings. This is an album that should be on every shelf” Chris While

By using this mix of spoken word, songs and tunes Hutchings powerfully captures and imparts the extent of all the different emotions experienced – joy, passion, wonder, confusion and sadness – the latter no more so than in two hauntingly eloquent songs. The first, ‘Brief Encounter’ which like the film of the same name, encapsulates the whole story, and ‘To Ireland I Made My Way’ both beautifully sung by Polly Bolton. As Chris While says: “the narrative reaches into the heart and gently tugs”

The poems have echoes of medieval and traditional love songs while the music on the album is a microcosm of every band that Hutchings has created. The folk rock of Fairport Convention, The Albion Band and Steeleye Span is immediately there on ‘Ring On Her Finger’ and throughout many of the later songs. The first song on the album has all the traditional flavours both in storyline and musicality and the dance tunes capture the spirit of  The Albion Country Band and Morris On. The impressive line-up of supporting artists includes many who were part of those bands – Phil Beer, Graeme Taylor, Dave Whetstone, and John Shepherd have all been Albion Band members. Steve Ashley was in the Albion Country Band and Dave Mattacks in Fairport Convention. Other guest artists -Christine Collister, Clive Gregson and Pete Zorn – have worked with Richard Thompson who along with Hutchings was a founder member of Fairport Convention.

This album is an important highlight in Hutchings’ career and a pinnacle in the volume of work that he has contributed to English music history. In Simon Nicol’s words “… not just heartfelt and personal, but beautiful, original, and fresh. 26 years on, I have still heard nothing remotely like it”

Album title:     By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and Wept
Cat No:            TECD236
Bar Code:        5028479023622

Track titles:

1. Prologue – I Dreamed A Dream (Died For Love) 2.53
2. Ring On Her Finger 4.15
3. Dancing Under The Rose – Again 4.16
4. What! Must I Now Make An Enemy; Under The Rose 1.34
5. Keep You Warm 4.32
6. Ten Reasons Why They Should Be Together 0.42
7. At The Women’s Institute Dance; Flower Arranging 1.28
8. We Walked In God’s Country 2.11
9. A Letter; Small Town Romance 1.46
10. Don’t Look Back 2.32
11. In The Café 1.04
12. Brief Encounters 5.56
13. Westonbirt Sonnet; T Stands For Thomas 1.03
14. My Dearest To Ireland I Made My Way – Lies 3.33
15. My Dear Friend; Dives And Lazarus – The Blacksmith 2.43
16. I Don’t Go Dancing Any More 3.18
17. Love, Stuff And Nonsense 2.55
18. Epilogue – Died For Love 0.46, 1.23