Tag: Dave Carroll And Friends

Dave Carroll and Friends: Dave Oberle, Brian Gulland, Graeme Taylor, Chris Leslie and Lucy Cooper – not a bad pick-up band. Bold Reynold Free! is, logically, the third instalment of David’s revisiting of mostly traditional songs. There is rather less rock on this album – no Dave Pegg so Taylor handles bass guitar duties as well as producing at his Morden Shoals studio with Gulland hitting low notes on a variety of instruments.

Bold Reynold Free! opens with a broken token ballad, ‘Sweet Jenny Of The Moor’ found all over the world. David’s text is pretty close to the version sung by Tony Rose although Tony didn’t use pipes as far as I recall. It’s a pretty arrangement. It is something of a contrast with ‘Hanging Johnny’ although Lucy’s harmonies sweeten it somewhat and I suppose that it’s Taylor providing the guitar break. ‘Well Sold The Cow’ isn’t a song I was familiar with but it is in Child and seems to assemble bits of stories from other songs – or possibly other singers got their ideas from this song.

‘I Will Put My Ship In Order’ is an absolutely delightful setting of a familiar song of a failed night visit featuring interplay between dulcimer, fiddle and cor anglaise before David gets around to the first verse. The story of the death of Polly Vaughan becomes ‘Molly Bawn’ with Taylor playing a cracking guitar break and Chris Leslie doing the same on fiddle. As Terry Pratchett had several of his female characters say, “it’s about sex isn’t it?”. And most versions of the story told in ‘Down By Mount Callan Side’ are, usually without so much as a by your leave, but the protagonist here is more of a gentleman and the sex doesn’t happen until after they’re married.

‘What Will We Do When We’ll Have No Money?’ is a new one on me although it shouldn’t be – I’m sure I’ve heard it before. It is an Irish Traveller song which details the travellers’ life in a light-hearted way. ‘The Hunt Is Up’ is an old favourite that I fear has fallen out of favour. Here it’s given the full band treatment with lots of aerophones and these two titles provide some light relief before the grim reality of ‘The Female Transport’ – an arrangement that is unexpected with Oberle piloting a range of percussion. ‘The Parting Glass’ needs no introduction and David hasn’t tried to do anything clever with it – just given it a nicely complex arrangement.

Finally, David leaves the tradition behind for Eric Bogle’s ‘No Man’s Land’ – although it will probably be considered traditional in a hundred years or so. At over nine minutes it becomes an epic without being overly portentous – Gulland’s pipe organ and harmonium enriching the arrangement as do David’s pipes.

To my ear, Bold Reynold Free! is the most complete of the trilogy. Expected, of course, as the musicians are thoroughly at ease with each other now. It’s innovative and imaginative with such detailed arrangements and, often, relatively unfamiliar variants of songs. A full evening’s entertainment on one silver disc.

Dai Jeffries

Artist’s website: www.boldreynold.co.uk

Bold Reynold Free! – sampler