MY BACK CATALOGUE Part 8

Part 8 . One Morning By Chance. Cassette. Steel Carpet Music MATS002  1989

With Lucy Castle and Trevor James.

I was very happy with this one. It was getting towards the style and approach I was after. We were now established in Derby and my daughter Lucy took over from Rob Whalley as my usual fiddle player both on recordings and live. Trevor continued on whistles and bowed psaltery. I included two tracks with Bengali musician Aroti Biswas from Luton who I had worked with for a while. That recording was the last time we played together and she died the following year from a cancer she had been fighting for several years. In a way this album was a tribute to her. 

Those two tracks were very different to anything anyone else was doing and they divided the folk world. Some loved the mix of styles and praised the ‘bravery’ of the collaboration—others could not get their head round the Bengali singing style! (They should have heard me trying to sing in Bengali but luckily no-one did!) I'm sure there was a bit of prejudice involved...

“If you’re looking for a collection of English traditional folk songs that are played with class… and that use the tradition as a springboard not a straight jacket then this is for you.” Rock & Reel

 Titles

The False Knight on the Road,    Alas I Must Live All Alone,    The Gypsy Countess

Lord Bateman,    Old Garden Gate,    The Flower of Servingmen

The Female Smuggler,    Two Magicians,    Over the Hill

Long Lankin,    Kiss You and Court You

I still do 4 or 5 of these although perhaps not as recorded. 

Here is the version of The Two Magicians which Aroti and I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VGma4vuNQ