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Even bearing in mind Dan’s intention to parade his songwriting prowess, it’s the banjo-centred instrumental tracks that will no doubt be regarded as the album high- lights. Their expressive and stylistic range is decidedly eclectic, from the stunning mini- raga of the oddly titled Whiplash Reel (informed, we’re told, by Dan’s new-found passion for Indian classical music), through the tricky-time-signatured Wobbly Trolley and the intricate bluegrassy-oldtime picking of Lost Rambler, on to The Tune Set, which steers us from a highly lyrical slow air to a typically fast-and-furious reel all in the space of just six-and-a-half minutes.
Dan’s skill as an original songwriter emerges best with the charming, somewhat Donovan-like Dancing In The Wind, while the understated poignancy of The Song Always Stays, the attractively ’60s-style Hermit Of Gully Lake and the seriously funky drive of The Missing Light all have their part to play in this creative tapestry. Perhaps Dan’s excur- sions into grittier, bluesier modes of delivery don’t quite match up to the spirited mix of emotions on Time To Stay and a fiery cover of Darrell and Anthony Scott’s With A Memory Like Mine, but in every other respect Inci- dents And Accidents shows Dan’s versatility in the most persuasive light.
www.danwalshbanjo.co.uk David Kidman
CSÍK ZENEKAR Amit Szvedbe Rejtesz Fon FA300-2
KARAVAN FAMILIA Asvin Fon FA290-2
Csík Zenekar have been preoccupied with notions of authentic Hungarian tradition for a quarter of a century, spearheading a strand of national sentiment that seeks to evoke notions of ‘love’ through fidelity to conven- tion and nation. This makes for something rather peculiar and amiss here, albeit played rather wonderfully. For example, the opening track, A Faluban … Szászcsávási Tánczene, is such a strange, swirling mix of hysterical strings, mordant vocals and familiar tropes played faster than is either comfortable or familiar, that the result is volatile, frustrating and exciting. But the band talk such a good ‘conservative values’ game that such risks, and such individual interpretations, seem strange, questionable, possibly even contradictory.
Csak Egy Dallam is dated, soft-focus, folk pop, played, problematically, with a genuine
regard. Mesél Az Erdő, meanwhile, is a cover of an unjustly revered and well-known Hun- garian pop staple, all scenery and no texture, swing and tradition for no apparent reason. The playing is fine and crisp, but the bonhomie sounds false, and the ponderous and porten- tous spoken word is cloying. In Születtem, Érkeztem, Formby almost enters Pannonia. So, seemingly, does the ELO, in Zár Az Égbolt.
Csík Zenekar have won the prestigious Kossuth Prize for their contributions to Hun- garian traditional music. Locating the journey that follows Adagio Swingissimo (after Bach) in the folk havens of Kalotaszeg tells us why. There’s all manner of grand variation, from Latin guitar to exuberant cimbalom and authoritative violin. This is how the whole should have been, a 21st Century Kalotaszeg, fizzing with tension and with judicious bursts of traditional Magyar music. Where other tracks are almost haphazard in their leanings, this is magisterial and actually romantic.
www.csikband.hu
Karavan Familia’s decade of seemingly easy and harmonious family music making has actually masked a sequence of experi- mental arrangements and an unarguable connectedness at the very heart of contem-
porary Roma music in Hungary. Parents Istvan and Ilona provide a backbone of vocals, dance and confident shapes on guitar while children Istvan (Jnr) and Nikolett are more than able substitutes, students – and energy, as is the sly modernity of a trumpet and beat- box groove that features sporadically.
Long tracks segue and bleed into each
other, gradually revealing a wide panorama of life, music and surprisingly important dis- sections of rites and high emotions. The title track is typical, an unaffected jaunt that masks mystifying and alluring trumpet, with typical- ly flawless percussion from András Dés. The album also features understated vocals from Veronika Harcsa and Kálmán Balogh’s usual dexterity and lightness of touch on cimbalom.
With assured assimilation and resigned
simplicity, the band have created something hazy and beautiful. This is certainly not tradi- tional Hungarian music. It’s a contemporary, instantly recognisable and unique sound, influenced by a profound knowledge of tra- dition, but too personable and honestly indi- vidual to influence in turn.
www.karavanfamilia.com John Pheby NORMAN BLAKE
Wood,Wire and Words Plectrafone Records 824761-144762
It’s remarkable that Norman Blake isn’t widely seen as an iconic figure in American music. Over the last half century he’s been there at many of roots music’s seminal moments – he’s played with Johnny Cash, guested on Nashville Skyline, was one of the creators of newgrass and contributed to the rock of modern Amer- ican roots, Will The Circle Be Unbroken? And then he was tapped for the soundtracks for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis. That’s quite a resumé. And his first album of all original material in many, many years is a cause for celebration.
It’s like a trip back through the decades with his ragtime guitar style and creaky voice – these could easily be cleaned-up 78s rescued from the Harry Smith collection. Yet it’s not nostalgic, apart from Grady Forester’s Store And Cotton Gin. Instead, it’s a series of stories and pen portraits, of outlaws such as Black Bart the robber and heroes, and very rooted in his native South (he’s from Sulphur Springs, Georgia, and still lives there) and Midwest. There’s simplicity and beauty about it. The songs sound as if they’ve been hewn from old wood and spent years taking on their shape, while the instrumentals like Chattanooga
Norman Blake
Rag sparkle with old-time clarity. It’s com- pletely solo apart from a duet with wife Nancy on There’s A One Way Road To Glory. The whole album is a throwback to a time before recording, when music-making was for parlours and front porches. America will be hard-pressed to produce something better than this in 2015.
www.westernjubilee.com/plectrafone.htm Chris Nickson VARIOUS ARTISTS
Favourite Scottish Songs Greentrax CDGMP 8016
HECTOR GILCHRIST Days Of Grace Wild Goose WGS409CD
The first of these two albums started from a project to compile a collection for teachers to use as an introduction to the rich song her- itage of Scotland. However, it became clear that there could be much wider audience, hence the album’s subtitle For A’ The Bairns And Awbuddy Else, and its availability through normal channels as well as schools.
And what a mighty collection it is… beginning with a live recording of Sheena Wellington singing A Man’s A Man at the opening of the Scottish Parliament and fin- ishing with The Cast’s delightful Auld Lang Syne (sung to the ‘proper’ tune), compiler Hamish Moore covers a lot of ground. And it’s hard to nitpick over the choice of songs or performers. Jim Reid with Freedom Come All Ye and Ceolbeg’s My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose sung by the blessed Davy Steele are obvious picks, while Rod Paterson’s Ae Fond Kiss (specially recorded for the album) is a delight.
On the more ‘contemporary’ side, there’s Gaughan singing Both Sides The Tweed (an out-of-print recording that I’d not heard before) while Karine Polwart’s Follow The Heron Home and The Proclaimers’ Scotland’s Story (here sung by Tom Lawrie) are rapidly and rightly passing into the Scottish song tra- dition. Tony Cuffe and Gordeanna McCulloch are also here, and if the SNP hold the balance of power in the forthcoming Westminster elections, I wonder if they’ll insist on Fiona Forbes singing her version of Sic A Parcel Rogues In A Nation. Well deserving a wider audience than the schoolroom and full marks to all involved.
Celebrating 50 years of singing in folk clubs up and down the British Isles, if nothing else Hector Gilchrist deserves a long-service
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