Bonny All The Way
Written: Nov 08 '01 (Updated Nov 08 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: An astoundingly assured and almost supernaturally beautiful medieval folk spectacular.
Cons: The death of Dolly Collins in 1995.
The Bottom Line: Haunting; playful; sparklingly beautiful. Songs of young country boys courting maidens in English orchards before being sent to die fighting wars they didn't understand. Beg, steal or borrow this album!
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| FilboidStudge's Full Review: Anthems in Eden by Shirley & Dolly Collins |
(The CD reviewed here contains the albums "Anthems In Eden" from 1969, and also "Amaranth" from 1976. Although recorded separately by seven years, the marriage of the two albums is a wise and beneficial alliance.)
Born in Sussex, England in 1935, Shirley Collins was immersed in the music of Old England from an early age, her aunt and grandmother playing and teaching her and sister Dolly the traditional songs of the countryside. While still in her early twenties, Shirley travelled across America and collected songs and fragments of songs, melding them to her methods and regularly performing. She spent some time working with the American song collector Alan Lomax, and in 1964 recorded "Folk Roots, New Routes" with guitarist Davey Graham to massive acclaim.
Shirley then embarked on a number of albums with her sister, including "The Power of the True Love Knot" which featured various members of the Incredible String Band.
For "Anthems In Eden," Shirley and Dolly were joined by the Early Music Consort, a group of beardy folkies with a dizzying array of rebecs, sackbuts, crumhorns and other fantastic-sounding medieval instruments. Also present are the Home Brew, a chorus of male folky voices, no doubt also sporting fine English beards.
Shirley's voice is remarkable. Utterly without affectation, she makes Liz Fraser (ex-Cocteau Twins) sound like Tom Waits. Every so often there's a lovely Sussex twang to her vowel sounds and she hits all notes head-on with the effortlessness of a blackberry falling from a bush.
The album begins with an awesome suite of songs reflecting on the changes in England brought about by the First World War. The themes throughout are courtship, love, loss, longing and death.
There are several musical high points:
The Wedding Song
A feisty, playful tale of the search for a wife. Shirley and the Home Brew take alternate verses, portraying a tussle for love between a roving young man and his perspective bride:
Man:
I will give you gold, I'll give you pearls
If you could fancy me, dear girl
Rich costly robes that you shall wear
If you could fancy me my dear
Woman:
'Tis not your gold shall me entice
To leave of leisure to be your wife
For I don't need or intend at all
To be at any young man's call.
Winding around the strident vocals are gorgeous, intricate crumhorn flurries and bells. From such songs it's clear that higher up our family trees there weren't the po-faced, closed-minded potato farmers we take them for but people just like us, who knew how to enjoy themselves.
A Dream: Lowlands
Showcasing the symbiotic blend of Shirley's voice and those of her male consorts, this is an a capella lament of a drowned love. Beautiful more than funereal, it still made me want to console poor Shirley and offer myself as her next suitor.
The Gower Wassail
A surreal vision encompassing astronomy and cookery, this song comes on with incredible portent, but its dark clouds subside into a bell-ringing, almost Christmassy singalong. "Sing too-ra-lye-doh," we are implored.
Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear
Another 'you-should-never-have-got-on-that-boat' moment. An electric bass guitar stirs vague reminders of Fairport Convention, and an accordion wends its way across a heartfelt tale of a longing maiden dressing as a man to go to sea to meet her salty sailor lover.... with tragic results. It's a perfect, rounded song whose themes intrestingly subvert the accepted wisdom that it's the male English sailors who dress as women.
Bonny Kate
A vivaciously jaunty and exuberant accordion stomp in which Shirley recounts the tale of the eponymous Newmarket strumpet. This is infectious stuff indeed, as illustrated when you can hear Ms Collins going "rum tum tum, rum tum tum" towards the end.
Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene
An almost alien immersion in the music and language of England in the 1200s, this track proves one of the album's most memorable. Shirley's voice handles the impenetrable Middle English with fearless aplomb and is accompanied by recorder and the viol which makes a wondrous, earthy violin sound. 'A 13th Century English Gymel in praise of the Virgin Mary,' it says in the sleevenotes, but for all the words I could make out, it could have been about sausages.
Black Joker/Black, White, Yellow & Green
This one is about sausages. Black puddings, to be exact. The tale of a woman making pigs' blood pudding to poison dogs - possible narrative pointers for J-Lo's next single? Perhaps not, but in Shirley's hands the subject matter is approached with a giant sense of fun. The song credits list the services of the Albion Morris Men who sing and dance. Yes, dance. You can hear them jumping about and banging their Morris Man sticks about. Sterling stuff. Not since Japan's vocals - bass - drums - hair credit for the "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" album have I witnessed such an apparently superfluous credit. Sadly, there's no credit for the person who made the cream teas.
Shirley Collins made her last recordings in 1978, and Dolly, who went on to work with folk musician Peter Bellamy and compose a full-scale secular mass, was taken by a heart attack back in 1995. The Velvet Underground of the folk world, they gave birth to the folk-rock ethos which would be seized upon by so many different bands to come.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Anthems In Eden."
Great Music to Play While: Clutching a lock of your true love's hair whilst drowning in deep, black seas.
Recommended:
Yes
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FilboidStudge
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