DJ & Author Radcliffe and Artist & guitar teacher Boardman hone their harmonies to deliver ten atmospheric songs that cover topics ranging from favourite bars to Liverpool/Manchester rivalry to the plight of asylum seekers, on their second album, Hearsay & Heresy.

Release Date:  30^th May 2025

Label: Talking Elephant Records

Formats: CD / Vinyl

After a ‘quick take’ in the May round up, we head deeper into Hearsay & Heresy…

MARK RADCLIFFE & DAVID BOARDMAN

Mark Radcliffe will need little introduction to At The Barrier followers.  The radio DJ and author has been pretty much a permanent feature on BBC Radio for the past 30 or so years and he’s the current host of the Radio Two Folk Show and co-host – with Lancashire buddy Stuart Maconie – of the 6Music Weekend Breakfast Show.  His published books include Thank You for the Days, Crossroads, Northern Sky and Reelin’ in the Years – all engaging memoirs of his formative years his home town and in the music business. And – as an aside, if you’ve enjoyed those accounts, then watch out for Mark’s new book, Et Tu, Cavapoo, a collection of stories from his time living in Rome with his wife and dog – expected to be published in August.

David Boardman is a noted fine artist who has exhibited his paintings at such iconic venues as Newcastle’s Biscuit Factory and at the Oxo Tower in London.  And, whenever his painting overall is in the wash, he spends his time as an in-demand guitar teacher.

WE MET AT THE PUB!

Mark and David met in their Knutsford, Cheshire, local, The Rose and Crown, and quickly discovered that they shared a talent and passion for writing imaginative, evocative songs and for two-part harmony singing.  Those are skills that the duo have honed on their jaunts around this island and across Iberia, in the company of their ever-present acoustic guitars.

Hearsay & Heresy is the second album from Mark Radcliffe & David Boardman and follows their 2024 debut, First Light.  Hearsay & Heresy is a collection of 10 new songs, inspired by subjects as diverse as getting caught in a storm in Glasgow, the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, favourite bars in Rome and Manchester and the plight of asylum seekers.  Along the way, they share bags of nostalgia for times and places past and, throughout, they deliver their songs and stories with harmonic precision and extreme warmth.

HEARSAY & HERESY

And it’s those harmonized voices, along with the pair’s acoustic guitars that sit at the heart of Hearsay & Heresy.  But they’re not quite alone; they’ve drafted in a few friends – Les Hilton (harmonica), Clare Smith (fiddle) and Gary O’Brien (piano) – to add a discrete extra something whenever the situation merits.  It all works extremely well…

Vibrant acoustic guitars get opening track, Merchant City, up and running and, as soon as Mark’s and David’s vocals kick in, the listener is reminded of Simon & Garfunkel.  It’s all very calming and the lyrics – umbrellas twisted inside-out, clouds anchored overhead, awnings torn from scaffolding and all the rest of it – are highly descriptive of scenes we’ve all encountered, whether in Glasgow’s Merchant City, or elsewhere.

STEALING LIVERPOOL’S SEAPORT GLORY…

From one end of our island, Mark and David take us to the other, for the gentle On Euston Road.  The tasteful fingerpicked guitars bring a Spanish feel to the sound as, with lyrics like: “Dropped in the smoke at some far finger post.  Was there ever a time here before rush hour slowed?” Mark and David recollect the emotions they felt – disorientation, followed by familiarity – when they first arrived in the big city.

The storytelling continues with Steal the Sea, another calming song that reflects upon the times when Manchester’s Cotton Kings set out to steal Liverpool’s seaport glory by building the Manchester Ship Canal.  The vocal harmonies are soothing and the acoustic guitars are warm as the lyrics tell of how a “…landlocked town [came to] rule the world” and extol the “shining towers” of the gentrified modern Manchester.  It’s an excellent song that will be well-received wherever Mark & David perform it.  Except, maybe, Liverpool….

IN PRAISE OF FAVOURITE BARS

Strummed and subtly percussive guitars provide the accompaniment to the duo’s vocal harmonies as they assume an Americana mindset for The Long Ridge.  Les’s harmonica adds to the mood on an atmospheric song loaded with references to infinite skies and nights – with guitars – spent under the stars.

Handclaps, and some imaginative violin licks from Clare, punctuate and accentuate the gypsy rhythm of the guitars for the vibrant At The Bar San Calisto.  The song is a tribute to Mark’s favourite Rome bar and Mark’s – still detectable – Lancashire accent sits in vivid contrast to the Latin feel of the song.  It works well, and the lyrics paint an alluring picture of the mix of sleaze and exotica on offer in this favoured corner of Rome.

And – we stick with the theme of favourite bars as we’re taken from the piazzas of Rome to a cellar in Manchester for Down the Steps, another of Mark’s bar tributes.  This time, unless I’m very much mistaken, the subject of his affections is Arcane, a Victorian hostelry in the city centre.  References to a blazing fire, corned beef hash and Barnsley chops get the tastebuds tingling and Gary’s electric piano completes the welcoming tableau.  “I’m not crippled by nostalgia – I’m alright Jack as I am.  But I’d love to go back down again, down the steps to good old Sam.”

POIGNANT, EVOCATICVE, NOSTALGIC

And, if Mark and David were denying the draw of nostalgia that time around, then they certainly plunge deeply into the sentiment with Never Had the Last Dance.  It’s poignant, it’s evocative and, yes, it’s nostalgic, with lyrics that recall youthful adventures in a ‘northern town’ and consider the fortunes of former friends who, in hindsight, were ‘destined to fall.’  And, there’s a feeling of unfinished business in the: “We never had the chance to dance, that sun never set” refrain that will resonate with anyone who has moved on from their roots.

The Middle Eastern-flavoured Moon Fishermen features gritty guitars, percussion and – is that a xylophone I can hear? – before things take a slight gospel detour for Right Side of the Tracks, another song that recalls tender memories of days gone by in Manchester (the ‘second city,’ as the lyrics suggest…).  Les’s harmonica howls as Mark and David happily conclude that, despite the challenges faced, “We kept things on the right side of the tracks.”

BURSTING A FALLACY

Closing track, The Not So Grand Hotel is a song that certainly needed to be written, if only to stick a few pins into the ballooning fallacy that asylum seekers are housed in ‘luxury hotels’ whilst they wait for their asylum applications to be heard.  It’s a harrowing story that Radcliffe and Boardman tell from the asylum seeker’s point of view with the perils of their sea-crossing and the hostility of the traffickers forming the prelude to being laid siege to by hostile locals.  As the song, and the album, conclude: “Batten down the hatches – is this the last farewell?  Room service is suspended at the not-so-grand hotel.”

Listen to The Not So Grand Hotel, the album’s stirring closing track, below:

Mark Radcliffe & David Boardman online: Official Website / Instagram / YouTube

Keep up with At The Barrier: Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / Spotify / YouTube