Tag: Play Up The Music!

I’ve spoken before about Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne’s rise from folk wunderkind to the youngest elder statesman on the circuit and will no doubt do so again. He has solo albums and his work with Granny’s Attic and he’s becoming a go-to player for project albums. Now he has one of his own. Play Up The Music! was inspired by a visit to his ancestral homeland of Barbados and moved along by a commission to write a schools resource about black music in the Caribbean and the Americas.

Several things struck me about this album. Firstly, its up-tempo nature which means that even the serious songs bounce along – you can imagine dancing to most of them. Secondly, Cohen’s voice has acquired an edge – I hesitate to call it coarseness – which perfectly suits the material and, thirdly, the immense pleasure gained from hearing themes and stories familiar in English folk song transported to a very different place. This is hot weather music.

The album opens with ‘Tacoma’s Song’ which is a relative of ‘The Keys Of Canterbury’. In fact, only two verses were collected in Jamaica and Cohen applied the folk process to fill out the text. ‘Row, Row, Nanny!/Crow, Nanny, Crow!’ are two dance-song tunes from Barbados which are played with great gusto. ‘Sweet William And Lady Margaret’ was collected separately by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles in the Appalachians. It includes almost every theme of thwarted love and suicide including seven vengeful brothers and bits of ‘Matty Groves’.

‘Hangman Slack On The Line’ needs no introduction or explanation, although Cohen added the “prickle-holly” bits. It’s a splendid, rollicking version of the song. ‘Highway Robber’ and ‘The Outlandish Knight’ are both stories of a woman getting the better of a villain on the road, familiar but different but ‘O Sailor Boy’ sees the position reversed. I seem to recall learning this at school as ‘Soldier, Soldier’, the story of the poor woman bribing a man to marry her and ending up thoroughly duped. Come to think of it, ‘The Rich Old Lady’, a relative of ‘Marrowbones’, also sees the man getting the better of his scheming wife.

‘Little Musgrove’ is the last song whose British roots are clear for the final two tracks are definitely Bajan. Like the second track, ‘Miss Bailey’ is a song melody that has been adapted as a children’s game while ‘Cocoa Tea’ derives from Bajan folklore and stories of love potions and poison.

This review may sound rather like an academic treatise but it isn’t meant to be taken that way – I just find the way songs are developed by travel absolutely fascinating. Make no mistake, and don’t underestimate the work that has gone into Play Up The Music!, it is an album full of exuberant life and one of the best things I’ve heard this year. Cohen sings and plays every note with obvious enjoyment particularly when he gives the melodeon free rein. Buy Play Up The Music! for the craic and stay to enjoy the stories.

Dai Jeffries

Artist’s website: www.cohenbk.com

‘Tacoma’s Song’ – live: