Customer Reviews

A Collection

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This is a dark, beautiful album from a magnificent singer little known in the USA, and too little known even in her UK home. Anne Briggs sings the old, great folksongs of Britain in a timeless, clear and wrenching voice. This is a "folksinger" who was truly one of the folk, not a product of a scene, or of the glitzy world of the recording industry. Rather, Anne Briggs "lived the blues" the way Robert Johnson or Son House did--not that the sound is remotely the same, for there are no flatted sevenths here, but the on-the-edge life, the love of music for its own sake, and the voice etched by physical as well as emotional hardship make this the ultimate "white soul" album. The songs are those of the English countryside and Scottish lowlands, performed as simply and truly as possible, but the spirit is of all mankind. Few albums are indispensible, but, if you have loved the "daughters of Anne Briggs," such as Sandy Denny or Kate Rusby, you will treasure this wonderful set of recordings. For heart-bangers, not head-bangers.

If you're a fan of contemporary British folk and "folk rock", you might want to take a little time to get to know Anne Briggs, if you haven't already. Not only will you be treated to a voice as pure and breathtakingly beautiful as can be imagined (and you can't, really -- Anne is to be heard to be believed), but you'll get a little history, too.

It's no secret that Anne singlehandedly changed the face of the British folksinging tradition. Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, as well as more contemporary female voices such as that of Susan McKeown -- all of them hearken back to Anne. This collection is a solid compendium of Anne's criminally few recordings (she retired at the age of 27 because of her dislike for her recorded voice, and hasn't publically sung since). Almost all of the songs are traditional, and make for a nice introduction to some of the British folk standard repertoire (though I'd be willing to bet that some of these songs made it into the cannon by virtue of Anne's performances!). In addition to the songs, this edition's got great liner notes with some great stories about the musical life of Anne and some of her contemporaries -- all of them folks who made extensive contributions to the British folk revival.

An absolute must for all interested in the British singing tradition!

i recently discovered anne briggs via a recommendation on amazon and am so glad i did. her voice is perfection. it is such an honest representation of the music that moved her so and defined her career. though i wish in many ways she had produced more, it seems so fitting that she would shun fortune and fame and live a simple, earthbound existence. this is a gem.

Anne is the girl who tricked the Queen of Faeries and rescued Tambling, and the same who wandered off with Reynardine into the fogs that mask the face of true lands of milkwhite steeds, unpolluted by cellphones. She rides on the West Wind and bemoans the East Wind, while the North Wind courts her, and the Great South aches with white flowers garlanded about her dark tresses. I would give seven pots of gold for a time machine, and I would travel back to the Cambridge Folk Festival in '65, and wander traipsing among the daisies with fair Anne, and chase the swallows as they play among the haywains of an ancient summer.

She has swum with the Salmon of Wisdom.

It doesn't get any better than this.

This is how I like to hear the old, traditional songs sung.
Simple and unadorned as they were sung in homes and
at gatherings long ago. Haunting stories about real life
that bring us close to times past.
Lovely - I'm so glad it was released. If you like this you may
like Kathy & Carol. Two old souls from across the pond,
who sang in the same haunting, and pure way as Anne Briggs.

This is like immersion in cold water-- once you get used to the bracing difference from normal sensation, you do not want to leave. Briggs' soprano is pure, free of much ornamentation but for this all the more controlled and focused. Briggs allows the song to guide her, and while she directs its interpretation by careful phrasing and pitch, she does not distract the listener from the narrative by any grandstanding. Briggs, in a Northern English/Scots style, understates her own transmittal of the tune. She points back, rather, to the tune.

If this makes sense, then you may like Briggs' self-effacing approach. This is not to make her sound mealy-mouthed or unable to make her presence felt, rather that Briggs steps aside, or gives the illusion of doing so, to let the song take the stage. No mean feat for a modern singer, like us all too aware of the celebrity and the poser who pretend to go back to revive an indigenous tradition in the name of roots or folk but really in the name of self-promotion and aggrandizement off of the public domain. If you have enjoyed Sweeney's Men, Andy Irvine, Planxty, or the numerous side projects of Irish trad in the 1970s onward, go back here to the origins of what became, slightly later in the 60s, the genesis of folk-rock. Even the Pogues, via a Sweeney partner Terry Woods of Moynihan, can attest to the far-ranging impact from two decades earlier of Briggs' arrival on the mid-60s scene. Here, partner Johnny Moynihan (who with another fellow Sweeney, Andy Irvine, brought into Ireland the bouzouki) gives subtle backing to a few tunes; these I would hold gain in resonance. I prefer the songs with a bit of instrumental enhancement, but these are few in the total heard here.

The majority are unaccompanied, and their austerity may prove daunting in extended listenings unless you are prepared for very intense, committed, and sustained delivery of British song as it may have, you wonder, been heard long before tape recorders.

Briggs' own discomfort with her recorded voice apparently led to her own termination of her career at least on vinyl by the early 70s. However, those of us less critical than the creator of these song versions that influenced so many in the past four decades of British folk in its acoustic and electric versions will want to pay close attention to where the origins of contemporary folk lie for so many especially British and also some Irish singers and musicians. Even Jimmy Page, indirectly via Bert Jansch and "Blackwaterslide" reveals the influence of Briggs, as does Sandy Denny and those who have followed in turn in her own considerable talents and pioneering inventiveness. Still, Briggs preceded Sandy D and Fairport and Steeleye and Sweeney's and all the rest of the later 60s crowd. This is where the revival began, for all practical purposes, for those who took up the challenge of restoring folk to its rightful place in the song tradition.

The stunning introduction to modern listeners here of the first and definitive "Willie O'Winsbury" speaks well for the entire collection; the penultimate line shows the singer's slight shift of emphasis, which sums up many verses and role reversals that the song tells of by Briggs' nuanced moment, caught on record so memorably. Of such slight polishing comes dazzling displays for us who can hear these early tracks, gathered with Colin Harper's liner notes and a handsome presentation from Topic. The result gives us the definitive compilation of this singer's best moments-- at least on tape.

In the early 1960s, traditional English folk and its rich tradition of storytelling was largely the realm of the Communist Party and people like A.L. Lloyd - an English socialist who saw folk songs as a voice for ordinary English people.

Anne Briggs began as a singer in this environment, centred on coffee houses, but with a much more traditional, emotional style than that of, say, Joan Baez.

Her early recordings epitomised the purity of a capella folk singing, and showed her voice in a great variety of moods from crystal clear on "The Recruited Collier" and "The Doffing Mistress" to the seemingly incomprehensible, singing-in-tongues style of "The Whirly Whorl". The sad "She Moved Through The Fair" was a taste of the amazing intimacy created by this a capella style: it makes one feel like Anne herself when one listens. "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" was equally naked and even sadder, whilst the soft, high vocal on "My Bonny Boy" developed a new level of dark, melodic mood on the memorable line "I built him a bower in my breast".

"Polly Vaughan" showed the tragedy of so many folk songs at its starkest: the tale of a girl mistakenly killed through being "mistaken for a swan". "Rosemary Lane" had a still higher, more melodic and softer vocal, whilst the disjointed lines of "Martinmas Time" serve only to add feeling in a way very different from the usual "whoa" of a pop song.

"Blackwater Side" offered a shock with its guitar accompaniment, but the beauty of Anne's voice remained because of the sheer austerity of this accompaniment. "The Snow It Melts The Soonest" was a classic nature-based folk tale, with Anne's voice less bell-like than before, whilst "Willie O'Winsbury", with dual bozouki accompaniment, was the most sublime piece here: Anne's and John Moynihan's bozoukis move in perfect harmony over a simple, reassuring tale of romance - yet sounding incredibly contemporary even today. "The Cuckoo" crystallised Anne's ability to describe the simple joys of the abndant English environment, whilst "Living By The Water" was a perfect finalé: chronicling Anne's love of solitude in harmony with nature (she wrote the song whilst living on Bull Island). The ten-minute epic "Young Tambling" was almost a family story: it is amazing how Anne could focus on the whole so much as to not distort it.

Anne Briggs' beautiful, soft yet all the more emotional voice was the instrument that led the English folk revival that was one of the most important events of the 1960s. This and Sing A Song For You show how well she was able to convey traditional folk tales in an intimate, spontaneous manner that can ring a bell even in a time and place so remote from these realities.

An amazing collection that repays repeated listening. Anne Briggs had a clear, pure voice, and her delivery is so unerring that the tracks don't sound at all dated in the way many 1960s folk music recordings do. ("Blackwater Side" is given its definitive treatment here -- it's stark and heartbreaking.) The liner notes are very detailed and almost provide a survey of the British folk music revival of the 1960s; they're also well worth reading for the incisive quotes from Briggs herself. If you aren't scared off by the fact that at least half the tracks are unaccompanied, you'll find some outstanding music here.

Briggs is a revelation....I'd heard her original song The Time Has Come covered by the Pentangle in 1968, and loved it. Her treatment of BlackWater Side is brilliant, and her version of Will O' Winsbury exceeds the Pentagle's (they clearly heard it from her).

The other reviews here are evidence of the high esteem in which Anne Briggs is held by those who love British folk music; I will only add my own opinion that she is the the greatest folk singer of her time. A Collection really does gather her best work; it's hard for me to believe that anyone who hasn't discovered her wouldn't buy it after listening to the samples here. If you have only a handful of folk music albums, this should be one of them.