“Harbour Of Songs” is a project…excuse the pun…helmed by Adrian McNally and funded by The Stables Arts Centre near Milton Keynes providing an interesting background coupled with a selection of ‘folk-styled’ music artists as diverse as Ralph McTell, Janis Ian and Guy Chambers. I won’t go into much detail here (you’ll have to buy the CD to find out more) but the basic concept comes from donated pieces of wood to help build a boat and songs loosely based on the stories of those donations. This may not at first sound the most riveting of reasons to purchase a copy of the album but the attention to detail and judicious use of arrangements and instrumentation harking back to the glory days of Clifford T Ward and Peter Skellern really evokes a sense of nostalgia that musically I’m pleased to see is currently on an upward ‘trend’. As a frequent visitor to the seaside town of Hastings I feel a particular affinity to Nick Hemming’s “White Fish Authority” and for other reasons…too painful to go into detail here…with Nick Hornby’s “The Ruler” which prove vivid reminders of a bygone era – mind you, if plimsolls need to be donated for a similar project please let me know. I must admit that listening to this recording was a pleasure and if, like me, you hanker for a bit of wistful reminiscing you’ll be hard pushed to find a more evocative representation on what is, after all, some pretty obscure subject matter.
PETE FYFE
Catalog number: The Stables STABLESCD001
Artist’s website: www.stables.org
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.