You are hereAlbum Review: Pilgrim's Way - Wayside Courtesies (Fellside)
Album Review: Pilgrim's Way - Wayside Courtesies (Fellside)
Lucy Wright, Tom Kitching and Edwin Beasant have been delighting festival audiences up and down the country over the last couple of months, making a name for themselves as an impressive new folk combo. Stockport's Pilgrims' Way, named after one of Peter Bellamy's songs, based on Rudyard Kipling's poetry, release this their first full length album, following hot on the heels their successful self-titled EP also released earlier this year. The trio continue to breathe new life into old songs including Adieu Lovely Nancy, The Handweaver and the Factory Maid and Tarry Trousers, all previously featured on their impressive EP.
The new songs include a bit of cross-dressing in Martinmas Time, originally learned from the singing of Anne Briggs and Only a Soldier, which opens the album, both songs previously heard by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady respectively. Lucy Wright's convincing vocal delivery remains the focal point of Pilgrims' Way, especially on songs such as Young Men Are False, learned from Norma Waterson and Dark Eyed Molly, one of Archie Fisher's best loved songs, both accompanied by some sensitive guitar playing from Edwin Beasant.
Citing Maggie Boyle as her hero, Lucy delivers a superb unaccompanied My Generous Lover before Tom Kitching showcases his extraordinary fiddle playing on a Norwegian tune from the pen of Sven Nyhus, Det Tømte Mjødkruset.
The song from which the trio's chosen name derives A Pilgrim's Way was the closing song on the initial EP, but here takes its place as the penultimate track, making way for a bit of a melodeon workout on Edwin's Framus, coupled with Iolo Jones' Jig Iolo, featuring some of Lucy's trademark Jew's harp playing, sparring effortlessly with Edwin's bluesy harmonica.
Produced by Forbes Legato and Jon Loomes, who also contributes some fine hurdy Gurdy on Snowy Monday, the tune that accompanies Dark Eyed Molly, WAYSIDE COURTESIES, the name deriving from a lyric in the aforementioned Bellamy song, provides a fine introduction to this promising trio.
Allan Wilkinson
Northern Sky
