Sharon Shannon, Spellbound
(Compass, 2005)
John Kirkpatrick and Chris Parkinson, The Sultans of Squeeze
(Fledg'ling, 2005)
Squeezebox time coming up and two CDs with three of the best box-squeezers around.
Sharon Shannon was one of the bright young hopes of the early 1990s. A good fiddler as well as accordion player, she received a lot of attention for her first albums, gaining a place on the prestigious A Womans Heart tours and albums of the mid-1990s. And all the attention she got was well deserved. Apart from being a versatile and sensitive master of her instruments, she also had an ability to mix styles. Irish folk was just a starting point for her, bringing in flavours from many other musical directions into her music.
Spellbound is sub-titled "The Best of Sharon Shannon" and brings you 21 tracks, mostly from her albums, but with the odd never-before-released live track to enhance the keen admirer's urge to purchase it. The album includes everything that made Ms. Shannon well-loved. You get everything from the fast "Bungee Jumper" medley to the more sensitive side as portrayed in the slow beautiful "Each Little Thing," traditional tunes mixed with newly written ones, of which some are from the lady herself. And there is even a screaming saxophone included in the live take of "The Mighty Sparrow." And on every track Ms. Shannon's playing is impeccable.
Spellbound is a fine introduction for those of you who have not yet discovered Sharon Shannon and her music, and a good reminder for those of you who have. But it raises one question: what has she been doing for the last few years? Everything here is from the 1990s, except one track recorded in 1989.
Learn more at Compass Records.
John Kirkpatrick has been around for as long as I have listened to folk music, and we are talking more than 35 years here. For his new CD he has teamed up with another veteran of the folk scene, Chris Parkinson, with Steve Tilston also showing up among the credits.
Even being aware of Kirkpatrick's involvement in folk rock and his almost punky outburst on "Goin Spare" in the late 1970s, I must say I was totally unprepared what these two gentlemen had in store. After all, it is an album with just two box-squeezers, their instruments and voices, nothing added.
True, you get Kirkpatrick singing "Ye Gentlemen of High Renown" ("Reynard the Fox" to the rest of us), "The Rambling Sailor," and a lovely variety of "Fare Ye Well, Lovely Nancy." And yes, you get some standard English folk tunes, like "Sally Gardens," but the rest . . . !
The record starts off with a lovely instrumental duo version of the old French chanson "Under Paris Skies." The duo perform it with no intention whatsoever of Anglicizing it. Then they lure you into a false security by devoting the next few tracks to what could be described as standardized English folk. But from track seven onwards it is shock after shock.
Track seven is a very jazzy "Since My Bird Has Flied Away," by J. D. Hutchinson, sung here by Parkinson. It takes you right back to pre-rock jazz. Then Kirkpatrick delivers Pete Townsend's "Squeeze Box," taken from the album The Who By Numbers, a song with the immortal words "Mama's got a squeezebox, Daddy never sleeps at night." I am not sure Mr. Townsend was really thinking about an accordion when he wrote that. Kirkpatrick and Parkinson rocks as well on this one as ever The Who did.
But it's not over by far. Track nine is the old brass band chestnut "The Liberty Bell," to most of us known as the title tune for Monty Python. Written by John Philip Sousa, the man who gave name to the largest brass instrument there is, the sousaphone, our friends perform it on bass anglo concertina and bass piano accordion. I assure you that you have never heard anything like it since The Cambridge Buskers performed all the big classics on flute and accordion on a Deutsche Grammophone CD in the late 1980s.
Then they soothe us with a medley of tunes and an "African Waltz" until it is shocking time again. "On Pulling Down the Rail of Parky's Shower Curtain" starts off pretty straightforward, but the writer, Kirkpatrick himself, has included quite a few unexpected turns and twists to the melody. A good example of the man's musical wit. (Remember the frantic 5/8 in "The Gas Almost Works," once covered by Fairport Convention.)
By the time you get to the final track, Clifton Chenier's "I'm a Hog for You," you think that it is quite normal to have a Cajun track on the album.
I must say I am very impressed with this album. It is brilliantly played, and brilliantly conceived. I have not had such fun reviewing an album for a very long time. Hats off to John Kirkpatrick and Chris Parkinson for having the nerve to make it. You'll find it at Fledg'ling Records.
