Child Ballads - Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer

Track list:

1. Willie o Winsbury (Child 100)
2. Willie's Lady (Child 6)
3. Sir Patrick Spens (Child 58)
4. Riddles Wisely Expounded (Child 1)
5. Clyde's Water (Child 216)
6. Geordie (Child 209)
7. Tam Lin (Child 39)

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 2013

Americans take on British folk ballads. I would never have picked this up had I not heard and loved some of Anaïs Mitchell's music elsewhere. I have at least three of these tunes by other artists in very different forms - including a version of Willie o Winsbury that I really love by the late Charlotte Greig, whose At Llangennith (on which said version is found) is still one of my favourite albums.

Here it opens with Mitchell's somewhat strangled voice offset by Hamer's pitching higher. Its a strange role reversal, but it works. The tune here is simply and stripped back to give the duet the spotlight. Already I have had to correct too many typos in this post, I think my ability to type is dying. My hands are actually aching a bit in worrying fashion, despite my not having to work today and thus I haven't subjected them to a barrage of typing already. I discovered Anaïs Mitchell through this project, as she was included on a BBC Folk Awards album. I have picked up a fair bit since. Her voice is different, but pleasantly so. This version of the tune is so different from Greig's that without knowing it was the same song supporting both I would never have picked up on it. This is simple and acoustic, with nothing of the enveloping warmth on a dark winter night of Greig's take. Here it is nice but not woven into my psyche in the same way.

I find myself less enamoured of Willie's Lady. The tune that they pick out is rather... flat. The volume on the guitar is a more significant factor in the shaping of this song, and the line is just not engaging at all. Add to that a bit of forced jauntiness in rhythm and song and I find the effort tiresome. I wonder if I am bouncing off because of my mood, my expectations or some other reason, and I hope that it is just this track that annoys me.

I have 4 versions of Sir Patrick Spens, putting Mitchell and Hamer in the company of Yorkston, Boden and Fairport Convention. I was only consciously aware of the Yorkston version, and could not call the tune to mind. Happily I find I like this. The simple inclusion of a fiddle to offset the guitar lending a nice feel to the composition, and the dueting voices fit better here than on Willie's Lady - there is no forced happiness, no injected bounce, no annoying carry to the rhythm. There are swells and lulls, there is a top end from the violin. It is, I think, this last item that really helps shape the tune. You can't have British folk with no fiddle!*

We now head into a run of three tunes that I do not recognise by name. I dislike the conceit of construction in Riddles Wisely Expounded, where every other line cycles a 2-line call and answer, and the actual lyrics are on the odd lines. Its just dull and unnecessarily repetitive. I imagine this is reproduced faithfully so it can't be held against our performers, other than through their choice of ballads to include. That said, it is Child 1; the first amongst many. I am falling, again, into the blow-by-blow, failing to avoid short snippets about each track. So to digress deliberately, whilst Mitchell carries a verse without her partner, making a nice change, I have a long weekend, 4 days. I also have only 1 full week in 6, thanks to strategic holiday (carried from 2016) and Easter. I hope that this concentration of 4-day weeks will help me rediscover my energy after a long while of feeling enervated. I plan to get back on the bike I bought last September to get some exercise. I plan to enjoy the warmer weather if it arrives, the longer days. Maybe the sun will show up. We had a nice day on Wednesday, I think. I was working from home, and made several trips down the garden - taken out recycling - to feel sun on skin.

Back on the record we're hitting Geordie. As it starts I immediately remember the tune. I am not over-keen on the bright roll injected into the lines here, they trill up and down and it seems to go against the dark tale told by the song. There are some very nice points to the song - I like that Hamer carries most of it for instance, reversing the normal balance of the two voices - but it ends rather abruptly. Much shorter than the other numbers here, it feels incomplete as a result, pitching us into Tam Lin.

This I really like. Here the natural rhythm to word and playing feels like it fits, it lends a sense of personality, of point, to the opening verse. Mitchell's voice over the lightly-touched guitar is a wonderful combination. The way these two attack this classic is entirely in keeping with what little I know of the song, which mostly comes from the modernised tale narrated by Benjamin Zephaniah for The Imagined Village. They have the right sense of urgency, the right tone. It's a really strong closing track - easily my favourite from the seven presented. If you look up one ballad from this set, make it Tam Lin.
 
*Of course you can.

At Llangennith - Charlotte Greig

Track list:

1. At Llangennith
2. Willie O'Winsbury
3. That man
4. Free fall
5. Perfect wave
6. Walk on
7. The snows
8. Gotta get you home
9. Over the water
10. Leave it blue

Running time: 54 minutes
Released: 2001

Ah, an old favourite. Comfortable in the way only familiarity can be. This was a real punt in the dark when I bought it. It is a record for a winter's night, snug and warming. A real gem. It is so much a favourite that when I dragged it into "now playing" to see the running time when creating the header of this post immediately after finishing Astronomy for Dogs it tempted me in about 4 notes to run on and do the whole listen immediately.

A cooler head prevailed, and I then found out that Charlotte Greig passed away earlier this year from cancer. Now it is time to tell you why I love this so much and will forever be grateful for one of her creations.

From the gentle opening you get an immediate feel for this disc. Tendrils of soft sound wrap around you like a blanket, offering you cocoa in the bargain. The title track, which opens the disc, is a simple guitar melody, layered a little bit to make a deeper palette and a soft vocal. It is like sitting out on a starry night, looking up into the blackness above and wondering. It is no surprise that it struck the 20(some) year old me, prone to contemplation as I was (am). The main refrain is a strangely compelling one, and even though the song meanders a little towards the end of its run I still find it incredibly compelling.

Next up is a folk classic, which has just a perfect backing here - acoustic hook, haunting soundscape behind it - and is sung with a warmth that transfers fully to the listener. I lose myself if the natural roll of the delivery and the simple repetition of the structure - though it is crafted better than that, little touches abound that break up what could otherwise become monotonous so that each verse is accompanied by subtly different sounds.

In truth, these are the two stand out tracks, but they imprint the album in my mind so hard that everything that follows basks in their glow, then and still. That Man drops the guitar in favour of some keys to lead it and for once this does not work so well - the keyboard is a little too tinny - but the song itself is a simple little tune: rise, fall, rise, fall. A nice lilt that reinforces the sleepy idea of the blanket and hot chocolate. Free Fall brings back the strings and with it the easy, calm invitation that characterises the album as a whole. There is nothing overly complex here, fairly simple melodies, uncomplicated composition and musicianship... just somehow coming together in some kind of magic. In any tune of nearly 9 minutes length you would expect the odd dip, and they are here, for sure. I am more like to overlook the foibles of a record like this though, where the general tone and ambience are so inviting and welcome, like seeing an old friend.

I have a number of other albums by Charlotte Greig, they will turn up here eventually. None of them has ever caught me quite like this one though. Right album, right time of my life or something. I am sure that if I was hearing this for the first time now I would glaze over and miss the charm. It is not a modern album in any sense, and that is welcome. I get a very strong sense of it countering the immediacy of everyday modern life with deliberately slow pace and simple pleasantries. I enjoy it in that spirit, a rejection of fast pace and instant gratification.

Walk On brings back the keys as the primary tune-carrier and here it works better. A melancholic air stirs in me when I hear this tune - it is not a particularly nice narrative, but it is beautifully delivered. In a wise move there is a momentary silence after it ends before The Snows begins. This is a version of The Snow it Melts the Soonest - another folk staple, and one I like a lot. My favourite version (as I had cause to mention before) is by James Yorkston, but the song itself is a strong one, and this version is sufficiently different that it does not fall into the same problem that some others do of direct comparison. The playing here occasionally offers the impression of flickering firelight which keeps the winters night theme going nicely.  We then have a song that I really should not like, but do. Its a love song of a certain type that honestly I think only works in the context of the album as a whole - playing into the long dark night, the need for warmth and, well, companionship. You get the picture.

Over the Water is probably the weakest song on the album. For me it is a mood killer. The change of sound - to a harsher, twangier performance - is not a welcome one. The warmth is still there in the vocal - the style of delivery there is pretty consistent throughout and one of the strongest points of this record - but the music is more distant and less engaging as a result of the shift. The edge to the notes (I think from a dulcimer) is off-putting like nothing else on At Llangennith. Thankfully it is a one-song blip, and the easy roll and gentle strumming of Leave it Blue is a nice way to end the album. Just enough musical interest to keep your attention and the vocal - slightly more floaty than earlier tracks - as fitting as ever.

When I first bought this album I was surprised and enchanted. Coming back to it now I am reassured and contented. I was saddened last night, after I found out about Charlotte Greig's passing, and that was entirely down to my love for this work. Amongst the many things she created - she was a writer, too - I was only familiar with her music and really only with this record; At Llangennith's simple beauty is a worthy monument though.