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FLORA MOLTON Gospel Songs OCORA C 583053

I Want To Be Ready To Hear God When He Calls Patuxant Music CD-257

THE McCRARY SISTERS Let’s Go MCC Records MCCS-1

On the 1st January 1988 my telephone rang and on picking up I was moved to hear Flora Molton calling me from her Washington DC home wishing me “A Happy New Year”. The previous year Flora had toured Europe accompanied by guitarist Eleanor Ellis and they visited me while in London.

The tracks on Gospel Songs were record- ed during that tour while the duo were per- forming in France, and when Flora was but 79 years old. Diminutive in size, partially sighted, but with a big, openhearted personality, Flora spent much of her life as a gospel street singer, playing open-tuned slide guitar, tap- ping a tambourine that fitted around her foot, and singing with a distinctive raspy voice that expressed true devotion. Her music was rhythmic and linear; she didn’t change chords much. She sang some well-known songs from the gospel canon like Will The Circle Be Unbroken or I Heard It Through The True Vine but possessed a repertoire that contained many obscurer gospel items alongside the many numbers that she had made up herself, like her song Louis Armstrong. The fourteen live tracks on Gospel Songs are a mixture of either Flora playing her guitar accompanied by Eleanor, or Eleanor picking her own guitar while Flora just sings, taps her tambourine, and shakes a shaker. Her music is the purest kind of gospel, simple, direct, open, and hon- est. (Distributed in UK by Harmonia Mundi.)

kiosque.radiofrance.fr Flora Molton, London 1987

I recently played in Germany with Eleanor Ellis, who gave me a copy of Flora’s I Want To Be Ready To Hear God When He Calls, an recent CD re-issue of a vinyl album originally released in 1987 on Lively Stone Records. Produced by Flora and Eleanor, it was made with the help of a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and features Flora accompanied by a number of musicians. Some, like harmonica players Phil Wiggins and Larry Wise, were also part of the Washington folk blues community, while others – steel guitar player Gregory L Walls, pianist Charles L Walls, and drummer Joseph Hunter –were from the Church (Church of the Living God). Sweet Honey in the Rock’s Bernice Johnson Reagon was also on hand to contribute vocals to two tracks. Flora is obvi- ously enjoying the interplay with her friends and singing and playing her beloved music. It’s a really nice album but, given the choice, I personally prefer the rawer sound of Flora and Eleanor on their own. Flora Molton maybe virtually unknown in Britain but she was appreciated at home, performed at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, the Library of Congress, worked with church groups, and made many clubs appearances. She even got to play a private concert for The Rolling Stones!!

www.pxrec.com

The McCrary Sisters deliver their modern version of gospel music with voices that are both powerful and harmonious. Let’s Go puts those voices into some superbly arranged musical settings courtesy of Nashville guitarist/ producer Buddy Miller. Cleanly and clearly recorded in that city’s Easy Eye Studio, the album showcases the sisters’ combined tal- ents which run from a whisper to a shout (and all tones in between), from a cappella to powerhouse action in front of a full-on band. The Sisters (Ann, Deborah, Regina, and Alfre-

da) definitely have gospel music running through their collective veins, as they are the daughters of the late Rev Samuel McCrary, one of the original members of the legendary gospel quartet The Fairfield Four. One of the standout tracks Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ’Round features the additional voices of the current Fairfield Four.

Let’s Go holds the attention with its blend of traditional and contemporary, its variety of musical and vocal arrangements fronted by the impressive vocal abilities of the four sisters.

www.mccrarysisters.com Dave Peabody

CLYPE Clype Other Music Records

A new musical duo has emerged from Aberdeenshire. Salsa Celtica’s pianist and singer/songwriter Simon Gall has joined with Old Blind Dogs’ fiddler Jonny Hardie to pro- duce a satisfyingly original collection of con- temporary ballads in a folk-blues cabaret-jazz idiom. Some tracks feature special guests Jenny Sturgeon (vocals/shruti box), and Ross Ainslie (low whistle). Clype’s distinctive and engaging sound comes from the combination of Jonny’s sumptuous traditional Scottish fid- dle with Simon’s piano-bar jazz-ballad vocal (think Pat Kane singing Mother Glasgow) . The album draws on numerous cultural influ- ences, jazz-folk-world, with various tracks recalling Salsa Celtica or Karine Polwart or Hue & Cry.

My favourite piece on the album is The

Internationale. Simon and Jonny have taken the well-known English lyrics of the famous old anthem of Socialism, and put them to new music. The result is a thought-provoking creative tension between music and lyric. The lyric sings “Away with all your superstitions, we’ll break henceforth the old traditions”, but the music seems to undermine and contra dict the lyric: the melody sounds like a hymn, and the sweet, soaring fiddle is the very voice of the “old tradition”. Is the song satirising the recent Scottish wipeout of the Labour Party at the General Election? Or is it invoking the resurrection of an Independent Scottish Labour party? Tantalisingly, it could be either (or both). Whatever it is, it’s genius, and Simon’s bluesy sardonic vocal is superb. www.clypemusic.com

Paul Matheson

SHARON SHANNON & ALAN CONNOR In Galway IRL BMCD 594 (CD/DVD)

Sharon Shannon is continually unafraid of mixing the colours in her musical canvas. She has experimented with an acoustic band, orchestras and big bands with varying degrees of success, while her bouncing flam- boyant accordeon style suggests influences from the European and Latin American conti- nents as well as the local home fires.

Her current aggregation with keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Brian Con- nor sees her at once reinvigorating her cata- logue and ploughing some new furrows. On the surface the accordeon and piano duo sug- gests a return to roots but Connor’s multifari- ous keyboards more often resemble a full band on The Bungee Jumpers and Cordinio with no loss of power.

Connor and Shannon seem to bond on swirling layers of Reel Beatrice which balance the high-flying exploits exhibited elsewhere. It’s not all high jinx though as Little Bird breathes its spacious gentility with delicate electric piano and sweet bass accordeon. Else-

Photo: Dave Peabody