Live Review: Jo Freya's Lal Waterson Project - NCEM, York

Jo Fraya's Lal Waterson Project

Sometimes it takes either a younger audience with fresh ears to songs, or older artists paying tribute to their own contemporary heroes, to help uncover English song writing gems that have been there for some time. We've had younger artists getting together with their mentors and peers alike to unite in celebrations of songs by Ray Davies (This Is Where I Belong), Nick Drake (Poor Boy and Brittle Days), Richard Thompson (Beat the Retreat) and more recently, the likes of James Yorkston, Alasdair Roberts and Charlotte Greig have contributed to a celebration of Lal Waterson's songs (Migrating Bird: The Songs of Lal Waterson). None of this is coincidental; the songs that Lal Waterson wrote, whilst being not so much overshadowed, but obscured for so long by the veil of traditional songs her family band The Watersons were in so much demand for, are now revealed as hidden treasures of English contemporary song writing.

Although I am fortunate to have seen Lal in full swing with her family band on more than one occasion, and can confirm there ain't no sound quite like it, Blowzabella's Jo Freya was fortunate enough to have known Lal personally and worked on two of her later albums. The Lal Waterson Project was born out of respect for Lal's work and a hunger to arrange and perform a selection of some of Lal's lesser known songs as well as to apply a fresh approach to some of her better known songs such as "Some Old Salty" and "Midnight Feast". 'They don't get enough airing' says Jo, who fell in love with these songs a long time ago.

Joining Jo at the National Centre for Early Music tonight were Jo's sister Fi (The Fraser Sisters - Jo having changed her name to Freya, presumably to avoid constantly being mistaken for a heavyweight boxing champion), Jim Boyes (Coope, Boyes and Simpson), Mary Macmaster (The Poozies) and three current or former members of Chumbawamba, Jude Abbott, Neil Ferguson and Harry Hamer. Transforming the NCEM's stage into a music shop window display, with various brass instruments, Mary's harp, Harry's tablas and Cahon, as well as a few guitars of the acoustic and electric variety, the Lal Waterson Project got underway with "Stumbling On" an up tempo, almost pop/gospel version of a song Jo originally sang with Lal on the 'Once in a Blue Moon' album.

Throughout the performance Jo encourages the audience to go out and listen to Lal Waterson, to seek her out on YouTube and get to know the material better and states that the idea behind the project is to rekindle the love of the songs for those who already know them and to create a new love for those who don't. Some of the songs are very personal to Lal, "Song for Thirza" for instance, a lament for a family member sadly missed.

Focusing on Lal's later work rather than the earlier 'Bright Phoebus' period songs, the musicians on stage swapped and changed instruments in order to present a different sound and feel to each of the songs. Sometimes fiddle led, but often with a predominant brass section including trumpet, alto and tenor saxophone, the songs were treated as if they were all a favourite child. Jo clearly couldn't make up her mind which was her favourite Lal Waterson song, there seems to be just so many.

For the recording of "Some Old Salty", Lal Waterson asked Jo to play the piano even though she doesn't consider herself in any way to be a piano player. Tonight the song closed the first set and once again we were reminded of the originality of some of Lal's lyrics with particular emphasis on the use of imaginative language. Jo pointed out that although a line such as 'He had a head like a toy shop' is unusual, we somehow know exactly what it means.

The Fraser Sisters reunited for a duet on "Young Billy Brown" to kick start the second set before the rest of the band rejoined them for more of Lal's repertoire touching upon themes such as depression ("The Bird"), politics ("Party Games") and family love and kids ("Bathtime"), before bringing the performance to an end with the beautiful lullaby "Migrating Bird", with Jude Abbott's dreamy cornet solo; confirmation of Lal's poetic song writing, and for now, my particular favourite.

Buy from Amazon:

	Jo Freya Lal No Masters Cooperative 2007-10-08 £13.99