79 f


Wood And Stone is a different proposi- tion, more personal while still steeped in country music and bluegrass. For a start, Nevins wrote most of the songs (and the one instrumental number). Moreover – and this should please our Ed, who reviewed Mule To Ride – she sings all 12 lead vocals. Though not unappealing, her vibrato of a decade ago has virtually disappeared. The voice doesn’t pack the punch of a Rhonda Vincent but blends most effectively with a smallish and tight-knit ensemble. Nevins herself performs on fiddle, accordeon and acoustic guitar, while producer Larry Camp- bell ranges from mandolin to pedal steel and electric guitar.


Another difference is the greater role played by drums much of the way from the title and opening piece to Van Morrison’s Beauty Of Days Gone By, where Levon Helm gives the beat.


The album starts off at a fair old lick before subsiding into slower, musing songs like Snowbird or Stars Fell On Alabama, a borrowed Frank Perkins standard for which Nevins supplies a new melody. The arresting Tennessee River shares the emotional force of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s recent writing. In a world of musical pluralism, Nevins’s roots are highly specific. With added harmonies from Teresa Williams, Allison Moorer and Jim Lauderdale, she eulogises them in ballads of singular beauty.


www.sugarhillrecords.com www.taranevins.com


Peter Palmer


TERRAE (COMPAGNIA DI MUSICHE POPOLARI)


Unknown People FolkClub EthnoSuoni ES 5387


The Sicilian band Terrae embark on the ambi- tious task of narrating significant moments in the island’s history on their album Unknown People. These are mostly occasions where there was a popular revolt against the estab- lishment which was brutally defeated and consequently written out of the official histo- ry; hence the title of the album.


The four-piece band is led by Antonio Livoti (violin, vocals) with Cesare Frisina (vio- lin, vocals), Francesco Di Stasio (double bass, vocals) and Giorgio Rizzo (percussion, elec- tronica, vocals). The musical ideas are larger than the quartet can provide, so they have called upon a number of guests.


Terrae start and end the album with powerful unaccompanied traditional vocal polyphony, a form that is found in many parts of southern Italy and islands. The tracks that are sandwiched between experiment with combining a wide range of musical styles. Inestra Russa has simultaneous tabla and vocalised percussion in the Indian style; Quantu Basinco has a Human League-like electronica introduction; Si Ddin Pisci Finu Mi Facissi has raw vocals over a broody cello and Mari has the unlikely combination of Miles Davis-style cool jazz and vocal polyphony, which works surprisingly well.


The title track is even more diverse in its styles with an English language rap vocal over a mixture of strings, Spanish guitar, children’s choir and electronic sounds.


This is a project of ambitious scope, both sonically and conceptually. There are inven- tive combinations of contrasting styles and the successful coexistence of the very ancient with the very modern. Unknown People is a refreshingly original album that surprises and pleases in equal measure.


www.cdroots.com/fce.shtml Michael Hingston


sound better suited to the banjo when played ‘medium’ fast. The screen is split so that you can easily see what the right hand is doing on the strings and what the left hand is doing up the other end at the same time. It is a little dis- concerting to watch at first but I think it would be a good way of learning; more to my taste than tablature, at any rate.


www.melbay.com Maggie Holland


KARINE POLWART


Here’s Where Tomorrow Starts Proper Films PFILM002


Getting the balance between concert settings and documentary style profiles is always a tricky one for directors of music DVDs. It’s good to get some insight into the artist with relevant background about the songmaking process, but too much chit-chat and tedium swiftly sets in.


Wandering through the countryside around the Scottish Borders, chatting easily about her music, stopping here and there to play songs, Karine Polwart gets the balance perfectly on this unusually warm, beautifully shot DVD. There’s no concert footage, no expansive selling pitch, just Karine out on a walk, interspersed with studio film of her playing her delicately crafted songs, accom- panied by brother Steven on guitar, Inge Thomson on her “bag of tricks”, Kim Edgar on piano and – occasionally – Signy Jakobs- dottir on percussion.


She’s a fine stage performer, but this sort of informality is the right context to really get to the heart of what she’s about. She laughs at herself living the folk singer cliché in the country surrounded by sheep and cows, swears about the midges, curses Mar- garet Thatcher and tells the back story of the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, escorting us glee- fully to the tree where Thomas supposedly met the queen of the fairies, in part inspiring her own song Tongue That Cannot Lie.


And all the while the music takes its own discreet grip on your senses and you have to doff your cap to such sharply observed lyrics about the “boy in the corduroy breeches” in Salters Road and the “barbed wire and brack- en and broken illusions” in Blood, Ice and Ashes. The quality of material like her Darwin Project song We’re All Leaving, From Rages To Riches and her award-winning BBC Folk Song of the Year, Daisy comes through loud and clear and one of the best moments is when Steven Polwart plucks away on a ukulele as Karine and Inge Thomson joyously sing I’m Gonna Do It All.


When the artists are so palpably in love with what they’re doing, it’s hard for the rest of us not to be equally smitten….


www.karinepolwart.com Colin Irwin HUNTER ROBERTSON


Unfortunate Puppy And Other Fine Tunes Mel Bay Publications 22208 DVD


This is an instructional DVD for intermediate and clawhammer banjo techniques. It’s based around 10 fiddle tunes that Hunter Robertson has arranged for five-string banjo. Each one is played first at full speed then, after some instructions regarding particular tricky or interesting bits of the tune, it’s replayed at half speed and finally at ‘medium’ speed. The selection includes Cripple Creek, Bonaparte’s Retreat, Ducks On The Millpond and of course that Unfortunate Puppy. I guess his interpre- tation of ‘full speed’ is the breakneck speed at which the tunes were originally played by the old time fiddlers, whereas to my ear they all


PO’ GIRL Live At Blue Rock Studios Po’ Girl pg007


DVDs of live concerts tend to be makeshift affairs, but this one is different. Filmed and recorded in Wimberly, Texas, the Canada- based Po’ Girl quartet offer real insights into their music with an hour-long show.


The Blue Rock setting is homely and can- dlelit, the audience mature and sympathetic. The performers are featured largely in close- up, and shots were obviously plotted to pick out the natural focal-point of each moment. The 2004 debut album – of which Allison Rus- sell is the band’s only survivor – yields the powerful opener Malaise Days. Introducing No Shame, a personal reflection on child abuse, guitar ace Benny Sidelinger gently explains why it became the theme of their 2010 tour. The audience clap and chant with a will in the penultimate Who All Is Here.


I first saw Po’ Girl in Britain two years ago. For me they have been a gradually acquired taste. First there is the mixture of genres (summed up by No Depression as “jazz speakeasy collides with poetic urban grit”). The film brings out the contrast between Rus- sell’s passionate jazz style, where she uses her voice instrumentally, and ballads where the words are paramount. Then there are the unusual combinations of instruments. Singer- songwriter Awna Teixeira is first seen swaying on gutbucket; in Deer In The Night she rings a bicycle-bell, and she also relates the story behind her accordeon. But the novelties are incidental – what counts is the music’s expres- sive richness, individual parts blending with seemingly miraculous ease.


What’s more, although Po’ Girl are a long way from home, their rapport with the local musical community is palpable. No other DVD performance has moved me so much.


www.pogirl.net


Peter Palmer Karine Polwart


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100