A celebration of Northernness from proud northerner Johnny Campbell. Eight songs from eight northern counties, each recorded at the highest point in its source county.
Release Date: 26th January 2024
Label: Self Release
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
Johnny Campbell has an admirable and sincere passion for the music, people and landscapes of northern England. Indeed, he’s spent his career exploring the songs – as well as the hills and byways – of our northernmost counties. He’s celebrated them in song, too; on his debut album From Hull & Halifax & Hell (2018) – recorded live on the Faroe Island of Nolsoy: and you don’t get much further north than that – and on his singles, Winter Hill Trespass (2021) and Right to Roam (2022), both of which issue reminders that, despite the struggles of our forebears, a stonking 92% of this country’s territory remains out of bounds to the likes of you and me.
And now, with his latest album, True North, Johnny takes his eulogy of the north several steps further forward with a collection of eight songs, each sourced from a different northern county. Northumberland, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Merseyside, Cumbria, Lancashire, Co. Durham and Tyne and Wear are all represented here, and, in an interesting and energy-sapping twist, Johnny has chosen to record each song at the highest point within its source county. And, whilst a guitar-lugging stroll up Billinge Bump, the highest point in Merseyside might not seem too daunting, please bear in mind that Cumbria’s highest point is the summit of Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain…
And, all that being the case, listeners shouldn’t enter into True North with any expectation of studio polish. These are definitively field recordings, complete with sounds of birdsong, flowing water, gusty wind and, occasionally, crashing waves – all purposefully left in place to emphasise that the songs are living, breathing entities. It might all sound a bit home-made but, believe me, these songs are full of joy and crammed with sincerity.
Johnny Campbell is a busy chap. Well-established on the northern folk scene, he’s played over 600 shows in 22 countries and, alongside his music-making, his knowledge of radical histories, landscape and geography have earned him a freelance writing role with Country Walking magazine, as well as praise from author Nick Hayes, a feature on BBC Radio 4’s Open Country and an episode of the award-winning Folk on Foot podcast.
The songs chosen for True North are inspired by the landscapes and social histories that shape the northern beliefs and attitudes that endure to this day. The songs reference chartism, co-operatives and the labour movement, as well as Johnny’s beloved hills, valleys and pathways. True North certainly isn’t intended as nostalgia trip, as Johnny is keen to point out: “This album is about living in the present, and feeling the connection between traditional songs and the world around us. Each track captures a moment in time, and these moments are fleeting and precious. For me, that’s what life is all about.”
It’s the well-worn Northumbrian song, Bonny at Morn, that gets True North underway. It’s a lullaby but, unusually, it’s a lullaby intended to wake the baby, rather than to send him/her to sleep, and Johnny’s acapella delivery is gritty, authentic and absolutely without any frills. Recorded in collaboration with fiddler Mikey Kenney, the lighthearted Leeds, A Seaport Town predicts the impact that the arrival of the inland waterway network will have on the city. Johnny sings lines like: “This will be – I’ll bet you a crown – Leeds becomes a seaport town,” whilst Mikey’s fiddle provides a real shanty feel.
I speak with experience when I suggest there can rarely have been a Derbyshire folk event at which The Derby Ram doesn’t get an airing at some point in the proceedings. With lines like “The butcher what stuck this ram, sir, was up to his neck in blood, and the boy what carried the basin, he was washed away in the flood,” the song celebrates Derby’s legendary oversized Bovidae, and Johnny’s lyrics even give a mention to The Baseball Ground, former home of Derby County FC. It’s often alleged that George Washington would sing The Derby Ram to his children – the humour of Northern England indeed knows no boundaries!
Johnny plays some nice guitar on Homeward Bound, a song that describes, with a light heart, the transient life of Liverpool sailors. The sentiments expressed – coming home to enjoy the girls and the booze, before running out of money and heading off back to sea – could apply to any group of seafarers, but there’s a warmth to this version of the song, and to Johnny’s interpretation of it, that makes it uniquely Scouse.
The Scafell wind howls around Johnny’s recording equipment as he performs a gentle version of Cumbrian song, Lish Young Buy-a-Broom. Reputedly written by Cumberland poacher, William Graham, who killed a gamekeeper and was transported, it’s a song that, with its intensity, place name-dropping and northern warmth, reminds me very much of John Martyn’s Spencer the Rover (perhaps it’s this song that gave Martyn the idea…) and Johnny plays some lovely fingerpicked guitar to accompany himself. It’s ironic, incidentally, that the song’s lyrics include the line “…me being unwilling to cross the raging sea,” given the author’s transportation fate.
Next, it’s to Lancashire, for Four Loom Weaver, a song that documents the threat faced by hand-loom weavers whose 19th century livelihoods were starting to be jeopardized by the emergence of steam-driven looms. The song references the inter-dependency of industry and the local landscape and Johnny’s unaccompanied singing thoroughly inhabits the story.
The struggles of the miners at Co. Durham’s Oakey Colliery are commemorated in Oakey Strike Evictions, a song on which Johnny and his guitar are joined by Gary Miller on mandolin. The song had an interesting conception – it was composed by Tommy Miller (known as ‘The Pitman’s Poet’) during a ‘cutting contest’ at the Black Horse pub in Beamish (look it up – you’ll be fascinated…) and it’s become a northeastern ‘standard.’ It tells the story of how the colliery’s striking miners were undermined by strike-busting ‘candymen’ – ‘scabs,’ in modern parlance. The term ‘candyman’ has another meaning nowadays, of course; one that is very different yet no more tasteful.
And, to round off this short, but sweet and highly informative, tour of England’s northern counties, Johnny takes us to Tyne and Wear for closing track, Here’s the Tender Coming – the album’s lead single. This time, Johnny works in collaboration with The Brothers Gillespie – James, on fiddle and vocals and Sam, on flute and vocals. The ‘tender’ in question is the vessel used to carry pressganged men into naval service, and the song is sung from the viewpoint of the wife or lover who will be left alone to cope if the pressgang catch up with her partner. It’s a surprisingly gentle song, given the subject matter but, in best Geordie tradition, Johnny and the Brothers round off the song – and the album – with a rousing rendition of Keel Row.
True North is a must-hear for northerners like me – and a great way for southerners to find out what they’ve been missing.
And – Johnny will be bringing True North to a place near YOU during the next few weeks. Why not pop along for a heapin’ helpin’ of Northern Hospitality?
Watch the official video to Here’s the Tender Coming, the album’s lead single, here:
Johnny Campbell online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Bandcamp
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