zhulin's Full Review: Silly Sisters: No More To The Dance by Maddy Prior...
Silly Sisters was a project done by Steeleye Span lead singer Maddy Prior with newcomer June Tabor after the latter's first serious album Airs And Graces had received excellent reception in the folk world.
Given the amazing pedigree of the talents involved, one would have hoped for a pure distillation of each singer/s talent. Unfortunately, Silly Sisters failed to live up to that challenge, for on such songs as "The Burning of Auchindoon", one fails to see much of Prior's sheer touching emotion or the stark beauty Tabor was to make her trademark on such albums as Aqaba.
At times Silly Sisters sounded as if Maddy was aiming to replicate her voice on a sound free from the rock/gothic influences of Steeleye Span. This was notable on such songs as "Dame Durdan" and even "My Husband's Got No Courage In Him" (which did gain a good deal from Maddy's most emotional performance on Silly Sisters. June Tabor, for her part, had her voice mixed very far down in the mix and only on "Lass Of Loch Royal" and "Four Loom Weaver", a piercing a capella piece with the characteristic beauty of both singers combined in a quite seamless way, did she manage to show the stunning character of her vocals. "Lass Of Loch Royal" featured a beautiful tinkling guitar from Nic Jones that fitted in perfectly with Tabor's own work.
On the positive side, the beautiful hymn "The Seven Joys Of Mary" showed Maddy's intended upbeat style in its most effective light: without being sentimental, she and June managed to convey the life of Jesus in the way ordinary people have seen it for centuries, aided by John Gillespie's simple yet eerie bassoon that fitted the summery warmth perfectly. One can even here hear that there are two voice even though they always sang in unison. This classic beauty and summery warmth was even more marked on "The Seven Wonders" which showed how Tabor's voice made a hymnal folk song sound so different from anybody else's interpretation. The bright opener "The Doffin' Mistress" was wonderfully charming even amidst the actually serious lyrical subjects, and Danny Thompson's bass almost appears to sound like a guitar amidst the melody of Nic Jones' and Brian Golbey's fiddles. "Singing The Travels", though the lyrics were sung so lightly as to be hard to understand, gave the same beauty from Johnny Moynihan's bozouki and Andy Irvine's mandolin, whilst the evocative "Silver Whistle" showed the passion and fire one expects from a really wholehearted folk singing partnership, as Maddy and June lament together for the return of King Charles (actually written by John Moynihan as an English Civil War(!) tale). The final whistle solo added to demonstrate the song's message in a not-so-subtle but truly fitting manner.
Though it featured some moments of charming beauty, given that it was a partnership between two of the very beat folk singers in the modern world, Silly Sisters lacked the power and intensity that might be expected. It's upbeat tone that Maddy intended did not really suit June Tabor's voice, so that she was rarely prominent enough for this to be as full a partnership as one might wish.
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