With their tenth-year celebratory self-titled release, East Anglia’s Shackleton Trio takes Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson at his word and, in their own way, sings, “Let’s bungle in the jungle”. Main writer Georgia Shackleton conjures tales of Bob the Wonderdog, a theme for a different unwashed canine, a great big tortoise, an elephant on ice (!), and Cher Ami, the heroic war carrier pigeon.
Other tunes concern a “modern broadsheet” warning about traveling peat-soiled fen roads, a joyous “frost fair”, and the voice of a truth-telling fiddle.
Just a comment: This tenth-anniversary album glances back with re-recordings of a few old favorites and a collection of new songs all recorded live, with the best of three takes selected. There’s a limited edition signed vinyl. And the wood-cut cover by band member Nick Zuppardi is really cool.
Just another comment: I recently found an Audio Archives’ CD issue of 70’s British folk band Ferris Wheel’s Supernatural Girl, which was, a long time ago, released on the Nicro label, with “a minute pressing probably less than a hundred copies (in order to avoid purchase tax)”. I will forgive the kazoos and enjoy the innocent acoustic folk (and very British) ambiance. We Mid-Western American Anglophiles feed on this stuff and fantasize, with Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and his “damsel with a dulcimer” as a guide, about countless 70’s folk bands plying their acoustic trade through even more countless folk clubs.
The Shackleton Trio invokes those Halcyon Days, with its fiddle-guitar-mandolin-banjo-voiced melodies, thanks to Georgia, Aaren Bennett, and Nic Zuppardi.
The first song, ‘Bows Of London’, is a variation of the ‘Two Sisters’ tale (Thank you, Clannad!) in which one sister out of jealousy kills the other. Of course, as was done in folk-tale times, the dead girl’s bones were used, this time, to construct a violin. And, of course, as was also done in folk-tale times, the musical instrument magically spills the beans on the “cruel sister” and her sinister sororicide.
Next, the up-tempo banjo plucked ‘Two Hundred Days’ is a triumphant and ragged tale of Bob the Wonderdog, who, after getting lost, traipses 3000 miles across America (Great Divide and all!) to reunite with his forever family.
And speaking of our canine companions, the instrumental, ‘The Dog Who Would Not Be Washed’ (not to be confused with Wonderdog Bob who was in pretty tough shape after his trans-continental trek and in need of a good scrubbing!) is now conjoined with Pierre Schryer’s ‘Cape Breton Dream’. Nice!
Two original folk tunes follow with a nice non-animal bungle: ‘The Black Sluice’ sings with the traditional broadsheet cause about traveling the Lincolnshire walkways, which have a tragic history to tell in song. And ‘Frost Fair’ glances back at a London frozen Thames tradition (from 1604 –1817) which found vendors, fires, and that (before-mentioned) elephant on ice gracing Britain’s famous waterway. This is the perfect folk song (albeit frozen) sustenance.
Then, ‘The Cabin Fever Set’ injects another instrumental reason to “toss the feathers”, with a nice fiddle and mandolin duet.
The final two songs return to that “bungle”, again, “in the jungle”. The lovely and sympathetic ‘Lonesome George’ is the tale of the last remaining Pina Island great tortoise on Galapagos Island. He died in 2012, after living a sad solitary life because all his mates and girlfriends were “over-exploited by whalers and seal hunters during the 1880s”. Poor guy! The sculptor Claus Oldenberg once suggested replacing The Statue of Liberty with a giant rotating electric fan. Perhaps, that wasn’t a bad idea at all.
That said, ‘War Pigeon’ is the heroic story of Cher Ami, a carrier pigeon (of the black check cock homing variety!), who delivered, despite being “shot down, losing her sight, and almost losing a leg”, a message that saved 200 lives of the US 77th Division (aka the Lost Division) who were being shelled by friendly fire during the Battle of the Somme. The great writer and lecturer Temple Grandin wrote a book called Animals Make Us Human. Well, Dear Friend, le message delivre. Un travail bien fait.
The Shackleton Trio’s new album is a wonderful “bungle” of melodic songs about animals and lesser-known bits from history. This is entertaining folk music, without a kazoo, thankfully, to be heard. “And”, to quote Tull’s Ian Anderson one more time, “that’s all right by me”.
Bill Golembeski
Artists’ website: https://www.facebook.com/shackletontrio/
‘Black Sluice’ – live:
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