Customer Reviews

Folk Songs of England Ireland & Scotland 1

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This CD is an interesting collection of field recordings done by Alan Lomax in Britain and Ireland. The singers are for the most part just regular, older people singing at their homes or pubs. If you are interested in traditional ballads, this is a great CD to check out. It has many singers, singing traditional ballads in traditional styles, without instrumentation.

In that sense, I enjoyed the recordings, because I have read many of the ballads on paper, but did not know how they were sung. But it's not something I'd put on for dinner music. The recording quality is patchy (these are, after all, field recordings), and some of the ballads are spliced together from several singers' renditions-- which is interesting for the subtle variations revealed in style and content from one singer to the next, but I really would have liked to hear just one person sing it all the way through.

The liner notes are actually more like a small book, loaded with historical detail and information about the various singers. There are a couple of annoying transcription errors in the song texts (the sound of a cuckoo clock in the background is written in as part of the lyrics, a chorus is marked incorrectly), but the rest more than makes up for them. It's a fascinating collection, but only if you are interested in folk ballads.

I love this CD. If you're looking for some fun music to listen to, it's not for you. If you're looking to hear or learn some very traditional folk songs sung in a very traditional way, it's perfect for you. I love folk songs, but I like to hear them as they were originally sung (while doing housework, on front porches, unaccompanied, and by non-professional singers). The singers are definitely unconcerned with sounding "good"; they are merely sharing their songs with others. As an American, their accents can be hard to understand, but that's part of the appeal. There is little to no instrumentation, and it's wonderfully raw (one singer clears his throat loudly in the middle of a verse, another forgets the words but continues on, there is a song performed in a pub with the crowd adding a spirited background, etc.). You truly feel like you're there in their sitting rooms, having some tea, and spending the evening in song.

Many of the singers sound like your 80 year old grandmother who needs a nap, but a few have wonderful voices. The young man who sings "The False Knight Upon the Road" and the man who sings "Broomfield Hill" are two examples.

If you can't get enough of traditional ballads, buy this cd!!

This CD is (unintentionally) the funniest thing I've heard in a long time! The recordings have almost no musical accompanyment and are very rough ... it is a bit like hearing your grandfather singing in the garage. The ballad singer aesthetic is almost diametrically opposed to the rock music aesthetic - the older the singer, the more gravely and incoherent the recording, the better & more "authentic" the recording. The performers often do only snippets of ballads that make no sense at all unless you know the rest of the piece. For example in performing "The Douglas Tragedy" Henry McGregor sings only the part where Lord William is telling Lady Margaret that she has a choice to stay or ride off with him. Even this McGregor seems to have a hard time remembering. "Go saddle to me my ... (long pause) ... my good grey steed." The accents are so thick that it sounds like an entirely foreign language in places (and in some places, like King Orfeo with its Ancient Norse chorus, it really isn't English). And the background sounds, like the cuckoo clock tolling mentioned by another reviewer, are great. I think I heard a cat at the beginning of one! Those familiar with Anglo-Irish ballads will find this collection fascinating. Others will simply get a good laugh out of it. Kids, play this, and your parents will REALLY start to worry!