Search - Waterson: Carthy :: Fishes & Fine Yellow Sand

Another fine CD from Britain's First Family

o dubhthaigh | north rustico, pei, canada | 07/11/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The hard thing is that when you are so closely identified with what English song should sound like, it is easy enough to be trapped by your own commanding history. So, when you have a voice like Norma Waterson or a guitar technique like Martin Carthy, how do you get beyond your own history, and theirs is a daunting one. I don't even know that English women should sound like Norma waterson, but she is so quintessentially English that you hear any other deflection as through the prism of her delivery. As for Carthy, how can you pick up a Martin guitar to play any English tune and not be influenced by the man who, along with Richard Thompson and Robert Fripp, has set the standard, so much so that I can't think of any one before Carthy with the same influence. Can you?

So, then, you have their child who is the first Brit fiddle player in a very long while to stand on an equal plane with her Scots and Irish contemporaries. It's been at least since Dave Swarbrick's heyday.

All of which could lead to a CD trapped by its own baggage.

That's not the case here. Choosing tunes that reflect stories of best intentions gone wrong and disastrous consequences resulting, WC has unleashed a torrent of an album. The song and tune selections have almost as much gallows humour and body count as an Old Blind Dogs' CD. The musicianship is sublime and superb (how could it not be!). WC is a Churchillian force to be reckoned with and their allegiance to the less fortunate in their greene and pleasante land is word enough to bolster heart and spirit when the rest of the world caves in to the Texas nitwit. I love this CD. It's arrived at just the right time.

One day, they'll do a DVD. In that DVD you'll have one of the liberating experiences of your life: watching Norma rise above her own reputation and deliver everything from WW2 patriotic songs to the most aching ballads. WC achieves a liberation in live performance that I just don't think you can get on a studio based CD, and you really have to see it, for while she is no Madonna or Spice chic, Norma has a swagger Mick Jagger would kill for and a theatricality that I've only ever seen Kate Bush come close to, and Norma keeps her clothes on. So, hie ye to a WC show should one arrive in yer village, otherwise, pick this CD up."

A family tradition and a nation's music

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 01/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the fifth Waterson:Carthy CD and as worthy as any of its illustrious predecessors. As before, English folk veterans husband and wife Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson perform with their daughter, fiddler/vocalist Eliza Carthy, who has already made a name for herself on the international folk scene. "Folk music" in the United Kingdom is pretty much that -- traditional and tradition-based music, not the confessional, singer-songwriter acoustic pop irritatingly and misleadingly labeled "folk" on this side of the water.



On its rare excursion into nontraditional material, W:C turns new songs into old-sounding ones. On this album it's the Grateful Dead's lovely "Black Muddy Water," and it sounds in no way out of place. Otherwise, joined by melodeon player and singer Tim Van Eyken (whose striking vocal on "Napoleon's Death" leaves the listener wanting more), the band explores ballads and tunes from the English countryside. W:C's knowledge of the tradition is legendary, the pieces well chosen and generally not well known; even if the title looks familiar, the variant isn't. A particularly pleasing surprise is the version of "Twenty One Years on Dartmoor," whose origin is in the American hillbilly song "Twenty One Years." Written in the 1920s by Bob Miller (best known for the old-time standard "What Does the Deep Sea Say?") and recorded by several first-generation bluegrass groups, it was, like much early commercial country music, a folk-like composition. At some point it crossed the ocean and evolved into a genuine folk song, and a very fine one indeed.



English traditional music has been splendidly served on the many recordings of Martin Carthy, the Watersons, and Eliza Carthy. Fishes & Fine Yellow Leaves is as masterly as one has come to expect, a happy continuation of a family-music tradition within the larger English-music tradition. Really, it doesn't get any better than this."

So unconcerned with the commercial, and so good

J. Scarff | Berkeley, CA United States | 09/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I too have all the Waterson:Carthy CDs and even have had the great privilege of hearing them in concert. I agree with all the comments of the prior reviewers. I will add that someone new to their music may be initially put off by their dark voices, which sound so different than today's pop singers, a pint of dark ale or bitter compared to a bottle of Bud Lite. Give them a chance; this music "ages" extremely well; the more you listen, the more you hear, the more you realize these are songs that have survived many decades or more, and appreciate what they are doing. I am a great fan of Eliza's fiddling, and the harmony singing of W:C has a quality only achievable by a family that has been singing together for as long as anyone can remember. Try it, you'll like it."