Enoch Kent, Songs of Love, Lust and Loathing (Second Avenue Records, 2003)
If you are long enough in the tooth to remember the 60's folk group The Critics Group (aka The Singers Club), you will know that Enoch Kent was a founding member. Previous to that, back in the 50's, Enoch was also a member of the Scottish group the Reivers, who were at the forefront of the folk revival in Scotland. Enoch was born and raised in Glasgow, but after moving to London, in the 60's he immigrated to Canada. Here he has performed in many folk clubs and festivals across the country, to wide acclaim. So it seems that, after nearly forty years, Enoch returns to the recording studio with this, his second outing since his 2002 release I'm a Working Chap.
To start an album with an unaccompanied song takes a lot of courage these days, with a lot of folk music moving into the 'virtuoso' musician and arrangement frame of things. However, this does set the mood for what's to follow. Out of the fourteen songs Enoch chooses to sing, six of them are unaccompanied, leaving just the lyrics or the melody to carry the song. Where accompaniment is used, it is kept very simple, just a guitar and/or flute delicately played so as not to detract from the soul of the song. I have to say I like this approach very much, and I think you will too. The album flows well and keeps your attention by alternating between accompanied then unaccompanied songs. Although Enoch plays guitar, he enlists the help of guest musicians Ian Bell and Tim Harrison, also on guitar, with Shelley Brown on flute and Lawrence Stevenson on fiddle. Although he has been living in Canada for many years, Enoch has retained and sings with his very strong Glaswegian accent.
On reading the sleeve notes in the booklet that comes with the album, I had to smile a little; for although the booklet contains the lyrics to each of the songs, the note at the bottom says, 'I don't sing with the printed words in front of me, and because of this the lyrics may deviate slightly from what is written in the booklet,' -- and they do! This doesn't really matter. I think it's what's known as the 'folk process', and could explain why there are so many different variations in the words of traditional folk songs.
Songs of love, lust, and loathing, they are all here. From the Ewan McColl song 'Kissin No Sin' to the words of Robert Burns put music by Duncan Davidson on 'Mary Morrison', to the traditional song 'Francis Street' -- which has the familiar song story line (similar to 'New York Girls') of a sailor getting his comeuppance. Other traditional songs included here are 'The Brewer Lad', 'Niel Flaheretys Drake', 'The Shefield Apprentice' and 'One May Morning' (the latter a version of the song 'Seventeen come Sunday'). A lot of people will recognise Nancy Nicholson's song 'They Sent a Wumman' -- an anti-male-chauvinist song?
Enoch's songs will be appreciated more by the folk purists amongst you. However, if I were pressed to say which is the best song on the album, I would have to pick track eleven, the ballad of 'Edinburgh Maggie', with the lyrics penned by Enoch and put to a variation of the tune of 'Johnnie Cope'. The story of 'Hauf Hangit Maggie' (half-hanged Maggie) is that of a poor young lady who lived through a public hanging. How she survived is a miracle. Her crime was an illegitimate pregnancy. Her punishment was death by public hanging. It was only as she was about to be incarcerated in a pauper's grave that a groan came from her coffin and she was found to be alive! The song cocks a hoop at what kind of man would pass a law like that! It's eleven verses long and very well crafted.
Another interesting song is 'The Toon O' Kelso'. Most will recognise the words as the song 'Marrowbones', only this version, with a different tune, Enoch learnt from Gordon McCulloch when he was in the Exiles group in the 60's. The album ends with 'My Mother's Sewing Machine', a song written by Enoch in memory of his own mother's Singer Sewing Machine, on which she made most of his clothes when he was a child.
How things change. . . .
A Web site for Enoch Kent can be found here.
