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The surprises continue with a very differ- ent, contemporised re-imagining of Dance (To Your Daddy) sung by Eve Simpson and a spoken word track, Bede’s Sparrow, recited by Mike Tickell over Kathryn’s haunting Northumbrian pipes.


And yet, for all this – or maybe because of all this – the track that really has you stretch- ing for the repeat button is Sandgate Lass On The Ropery Banks, a fragile instrumental of startling perfection and profound emotion, played by Kathryn on fiddle and pipes along- side Ian Stephenson’s intricate guitar. You don’t have to be from Tyneside to love this.


www.kathryntickell.com Colin Irwin SON HOUSE


Special Rider Blues: The 1930-1942 Mississippi and Wisconsin Recordings Soul Jam Records 600885


LEAD BELLY Midnight Special Soul Jam Records 600886


MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT


Spike Driver Blues: The Complete 1928 OKEH Recordings Soul Jam Records 600887


Derroll Adams DERROLL ADAMS


Feelin’ Fine Ghosts From The Basement GFTB 7051


A long-awaited and very welcome reissue of an album that the legendary singer, beat drifter and zen banjo master made for The Village Thing label in 1972. Rescued from near-fatal alcoholism by his devoted wife Danny, the rejuvenated Adams arrived in Bris- tol (UK) with Flemish multi-instrumentalist Roland Van Campenhout and English guitarist Wizz Jones in tow, and made what many fans (Ralph McTell included) regard as the best recordings of his career.


It’s a balanced and well-sequenced col- lection of songs – philosophical, personal, playful and poetic, which includes revisited repertoire-staples like the traditional Mule- skinner Blues, Wildwood Flower and Deep Ellum Blues alongside three of his greatest original compositions, Love Song, The Valley and The Sky.


Recorded in the none-more-apt environ- ment of the Friends Meeting House in Fren- chay, there’s a palpable camaraderie that flows between the musicians and producer Ian Anderson, and when Danny’ s voice joins Derroll’s in song, the effect is affectingly beautiful.


The CD includes six bonus tracks from the 1975 Belgian release Along The Way, recorded with Maggie Holland, Youra Marcus and Tucker Zimmerman. (The) Mountain com- pletes the introspective Sky/Valley/Mountain trilogy, while Tucker Zimmerman’s Oregon is another career-defining performance.


“There’s a time when you face your soul,” Adams considers on The Sky. “To find if you are true and whole.” This wonderful record captures a perfect moment in a time and place when Derroll Adams was exactly that.


derrolladams.org Steve Hunt


KATHRYN TICKELL & FRIENDS Water Of Tyne Magnetic North East MNE001


The Friends are significant. The Unthanks, Bob Fox, The Side, Hannah Rickard, Ian Stephen- son, Superfolkus and even Kathryn’s old man Mike Tickell offering a different view of the characteristically empathetic and atmospheric music created by Kathryn in what amounts to an expansive love letter to Tyneside. It’s an album of gentle soul and exquisite playing, but beyond the instrumental landscapes that blossom before us, the songs give another critical insight into the stories and history behind all the affecting music.


You wouldn’t, perhaps, anticipate that


Jimmy Nail’s name would be held in such rev- erence in these surroundings, but Bob Fox singing Big River, Nail’s yearning salute to the shipbuilding industry (voted the North East’s favourite song in a local newspaper a couple of years ago) is a giant of a track. Similarly, Hannah Rickard establishes the heartfelt beauty of the theme with the lovely title song, while Rachel and Becky Unthank offer breathy mournfulness on the Press Gang lament, Canny Keel Lad.


Preceded by a grandly elongated instru- mental arrangement of Water Of Tyne, Mike Tickell’s hardy Auld Lang Syne adapation Coaly Tyne gives the whole thing a shrewdly programmed thematic emphasis that wouldn’t sound amiss on a stage with Martin Green’s puppeteering friends. Sadness, natural beau- ty, tragedy, love and serenity all live here as Kathryn, Ian Stephenson and her young friends from Superfolkus meld blissfully gen- tle and sometimes surprising melodies and soundscapes around the songs; while the harp and cello of her friends from The Side – Ruth Wall and Louisa Tuck – add dramatic classical touches on the challenging tune Aqua Tinae.


Soul Jam records have steadily built their cat- alogue of CDs concentrating on blues, soul, and R&B album reissues (many now hard to find on the original vinyl). It’s a catalogue that contains many gems but they’re now looking back further down the line at the recordings of a number of seminal blues artists who were recorded before the long- playing album was invented. Here are three sets of essential classic blues from three of the greatest blues artists ever to pick up a guitar in front of a microphone and record- ing machine.


Son House was the rawest, roughest delta guitarist and blues hollerer, whose pow- erful slide guitar and hard vocal style influ- enced both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Many of House’s own recordings are not an easy listen but, basic as they are, there’s no denying their primitive power. This double CD set runs chronologically back- wards, arriving at House’s earliest recordings some way through the second disc. CD1 fea- tures recordings made in Mississippi in the early 1940s by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress, some including the second guitar of Willie Brown, the mandolin of Fiddlin’ Joe Martin, and the harmonica of Leroy Williams. CD2 starts with nine solo tracks “probably recorded for a TV broadcast, early 1940s” (according to the booklet notes) followed by the five released tracks House recorded for Paramount records in 1930. Missing is the re- discovered Paramount test pressing of House’s Walking Blues, although a test (or alternate take) of Special Rider Blues is included. The CD closes with a live version of Pony Blues.


The Lead Belly set (also a double) tries hard to include every well-known song asso- ciated with the Louisiana songster. Starting with The Midnight Special, finishing 49 tracks later with Ain’t Gonna Study War No More, you can also singalong with Lead Belly on Rock Island Line, Take This Hammer, Pick A Bale Of Cotton, and Goodnight Irene. Lead Belly’s repertoire was so vast that two CD’s worth is never going to cover his many, varied types of song… none of his monologues have been selected and there are only a couple of his spirituals included. But, what has been programmed, including recordings of Huddie backed by Josh White, or Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, and Woody Guthrie, confirms just what an amazing singer, guitarist, per- former, songwriter, and treasure trove of American songs he was. His ground-shaking vocals and stunning twelve-string guitar play-


Photo: Dave Peabody


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