Tom Byrne, The Last Druids (Self released, 2002)
Hunters Moon, Ripe and Bearded (Self released, 2002)
Here at Green Man, we pride ourselves on providing the most eclectic and comprehensive folklore review 'zine on the Net. In recent weeks we've featured reviews on such familiar names as Dolly Parton, Bruce Cockburn and Clannad, but those artists represent only the very tip of the iceberg which is our CD pile! Of course, producing and manufacturing your own album on CD is nothing like as difficult or expensive as it was in the days of vinyl.
Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of debate. The "nays" certainly have a strong case. They argue that the ease of creating a CD means that the market gets swamped with rubbish, while the impact of releases by worthwhile artists is diminished. The ayes, meanwhile, gleefully point out that the capitalist IT industry has inadvertently realised a Marxist ideal, by placing the means of production in the hands of the workers! What is certain, however, is that while record companies continue to throw obscenely large amounts of money at guaranteed crowd pleasers, a lot of more esoteric music would never get heard at all without these independent, "cottage industry" recordings.
Let's see how these three measure up.
Full Sail - inside the lid is sub titled "The words of Cicely Fox- Smith, set to music by Gordon Morris." Fox Smith (1882-1954) wrote an impressive collection of maritime poetry, and seems to have had a particular "ear" and empathy for the lives and aspirations of working sailors in the last days of sail. Many of her poems were written in "ballad metre," which suggests that her intention was for her words to be sung, rather than merely read. Morris has taken this task very much to his heart with this fourteen track CD. Rather than composing new melodies for the lyrics, Morris has used his extensive knowledge of British traditional music to find an appropriate setting for these poems in melodies contemporaneous with Fox-Smith's writing. It's a wise and wholly appropriate decision which serves to enhance the remarkable "authenticity" of these songs.
Morris sings in a straightforwardly unaffected, conversational style and accompanies himself with mandolin, mandola, mandocello and guitar. Additional vocals and guitar are provided by our own Peter Massey, who also recorded and produced the CD. This clearly isn't a flawless, highly polished, production. Here and there you may find the vocal pitch slightly suspect, or a mandolin phrase slightly out of kilter with a guitar, but it doesn't matter in the slightest. I don't imagine for one second that Morris is aiming for folk "stardom" with this release, neither is he aiming to make a profit (at the bargain price that he's selling this for, it would be impossible)! No, this is clearly a genuine "labour of love," which has resulted in a most excellent source of "new" material for anyone who loves to sing songs of the sea. This isn't "vanity publishing," on the part of Morris (and Massey), but an honest and worthwhile contribution to this branch of the song tradition - thumbs up chaps!
The Last Druids is an instrumental suite of music composed and performed by Tom Byrne. It falls somewhere in the space between classical and progressive rock, so comparisons with Mike Oldfield are, perhaps, inevitable. Byrne's certainly no slouch as a composer, and there's some appealing melodic passages floating around on this. However, whereas Mr Oldfield is a renowned multi-instrumentalist (with unlimited studio time and a cast of thousands to call on), Byrne's relied entirely on his trusty synthesisers. By the time that I'd sat through the synthetic seagulls crying, the synthetic waves lapping, the synthetic bells tolling, the synthetic Bard harping, the synthetic monks chanting and the synthetic flutes and pipes, I was longing with every fibre of my being for Byrne to pluck a string, shake a tambourine, blow a kazoo, anything to hear a bit of air vibrating.
It's said that in the time of the Druids, the musical skill of a great bard could be measured by his proficiency in three magical arts:
1. His music could enchant his listeners to perform deeds of great courage on the battlefield.
2. His music could enchant his listeners to fall passionately in love.
3. His music could enchant his listeners to fall asleep.
Unfortunately, squelchy synthesiser sounds only carry the last of those enchantments for this reviewer.
I haven't been provided with a lot of information about this release, so it's quite possible that the purpose of this CD is partly to generate interest and funding towards an orchestrated version at some time in the future. There's enough evidence of Byrne's talent here to suggest that such a project would be worth pursuing. If, however, this is "it," then I can't honestly see The Last Druids selling too many copies outside of a few "crystal and candle" shops in Glastonbury or Tintagel.
Ripe and Bearded is the debut release from this new three man harmony group from Cornwall. Actually, the word "new" is slightly misleading as Jinks Jenkin, Mike Kessell and Niall Timmins have (as their publicity poster points out); over 100 years of performing experience among them! Jenkin and Kessell were for many years two-thirds of Jinks's Stack, who achieved great popularity on the U.K. club and festival circuit some years ago. New boy Timmins is an Irishman with an intriguing and eclectic musical history, including a prolonged stint with Incredible String Band founder Clive Palmer. There's a faint, but discernible trace of that esteemed band's gleeful, reckless adventurism in some of the arrangements here.
While Hunters Moon concentrate mainly on the traditional repertoire ("Bedlam Boys," "Bold Wolfe," Bold Reynard," etc), their ability to effortlessly conjure vocal chords (from their vocal chords!) imbues many of these familiar songs with dramatic and unexpected dynamism. (As a listener in a pub wryly observed, "why sing in thirds and fifths when you can hit nineteenths and twenty sevenths with no bother?")
There are three contemporary songs on this collection. Dave Webber's "Bonnet and Shawl" certainly isn't my favourite from that writer's pen but Hunters Moon do great service to it, while Mike Harding's "July Wakes" is a standout. Kessell's delivery is spine tingling, and when his colleagues came in with the harmonies my initial reaction was immediately start the track again (just to check that I could believe my ears)! Mike Batt's "Caravan Song" is an unusual and bold choice for a group of this type, and a surprisingly successful one.
Songs like "Ripe and Bearded Barley," "Wings of a Gull," "John Barleycorn," and "Three Jolly Boys," all demonstrate these chaps fondness for a drop of decent beer, and who can blame them? After all, Cornwall produces the finest ale on earth and nothing goes better with it than some fine singing. I suspect that my aforementioned colleague Mr Massey may disagree with me (as Northerners are wont to do) about the unparalleled excellence of Cornish beer, but I've no doubt at all that he'd love Hunters Moon, or that you would, too.
The Gordon Morris CD can be sourced from this Web site. Tom Byrne can be contacted here.
Hunters Moon don't have a Web site. Anyone wishing to contact them can e-mail me and I'll get it to them by messenger gull....
