Squeezy pleezy celebration, as Whetstone and co. plunder their illustrious past.
FOLK-ROCK LIFER
Dave Whetstone is a name known to well to folk-rock lifers, a brave and bold foot soldier who served well and with honours. With medals from various campaigns, it is probably as a founding stalwart of the Cock & Bull Band and as a bastion of various Albion Bands and Albion Dance Bands that he is best known, but dispatches also mention the short-lived WAZ!, with Martin Allcock and Pete Zorn. Thought to have long since hung up his melodeon; I am sure I caught a farewell gig at Towersey’s Festival, before the big plague, this comes a decided delight.
And it is down to no less than Ashley Hutchings that this has come about, with Whetstone one of the many eased out of their slippers and back on stage, for the Guv’nor’s 80th Birthday Bash, last year. The experience prove such joy for all involved, that Whetstone felt a need to kickstart his rolodex into life, drawing back many of those present that day to present a further circuit around the electric muse. With a fair few familiar names tagging along for good measure.
MORE THAN NOSTALGIA
There is an unmistakable whiff of nostalgia about these 12 tracks, both songs and tunes, some old, some newer and many revisited from afar. But this isn’t old hash reheated, this manages to reinvigorate a genre in danger of falling out of style. Those with Compleat Dancing Master’s on their shelves will relish this set of classic electro-folk-renaissance whimsy. And those without can make a start here.
BANGER
It is with a burst of familiar that the set opens, with a revived One For Dan, the tune that opened Cock & Bull’s Eyes Closed And Rocking, back in (shhhhh…..) 1985. Then it was a tentative introduction to their semi-electric take on folk dance. Here it is an unashamed banger. Back then it was predominantly melodeon led, and whilst that is still an integral feature, more it is the guitar of Albion Band/Home Service/Gryphon stalwart, Graeme Taylor that is centre stage. a lovely rush of nostalgia tempered with enough new life to already make this release welcome indeed. He is also, it says here, handling bass, banjo, uke and keys, with longterm cohort, in at least two of those bands, Michael Gregory on the drums.
Rocky And Another Gopher is a more of a swirl, with Whetstone flexing his melodeon over some Taylor’s bouzouki and banjo. Gregory adds percussion of a style familiar to those familiar, probably nakers, remember them, or some such, otherwise long forgotten. The effect is strangely Balkan, altho some nifty keyboard flourishes, Taylor again, bring the Doors and Light My Fire to mind. So far, so good, even as the jolt of the next singer shifts some tectonic in the memory banks.
Always an acquired taste, Cathy “Day Trip To Bangor” LeSurf was the singer in Hutching’s Albion Band of the mid 80’s, and seems to have retained all of her top end. Always Chasing Rainbows gets a lick of slightly too shiny gloss, which gets a slightly countrified approach. Added Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks are also on hand to add some precision to the arrangement.
JOYOUSLY OFF-PISTE
Michael And Mary is resplendent with jaw harp from Martin Brinsford, which twangs throughout this celebrant romp, before the jolly jig, um. Jolly Jolly Demons, which, from a trad enough start, goes joyously off piste, with hammond and baritone sax embellishments from Pete Bullock, and a tremendous progtastic guitar solo from Taylor. To Ireland is a further song, this time with another Albion familiar, Polly Bolton, A majestic ballad, and a highlight of By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down And Wept, As on the original, this is predominantly a showcase for John Shepherd’s elegiac setting of the borrowed melody, Bonny Light Horseman, but it is less ornate than on than record, and actually a bit the better for that.
The Morris On dynasties have an important role in the shared history of many of these players, and Horatio, from Grandson Of is expanded on the then solo mouth organ rendition, Brinsford reprising his delivery thereof, joined by the core band of Whetstone, Taylor and Gregory. A solo guitar piece, on double tracked acoustic and electric, follows, Turning Leaves. It was a tune that Whetstone wrote and played guitar on originally, here gifting it to Taylor for an Akkerman-adjacent interpretation.
We’ve had LeSurf and Bolton’s vocals, it thus entirely appropriate that the triad of memories be rounded out by Judy Dunlop. The version of, natch, Sway With Me, is impeccable, with her son, with Hutchings, Blair (Dunlop) adding vocals. (This was a song with which he had some familiarity, being still inside his mother at the time she sang it, first time around.)
COBWEBS TO OBLIVION
With a brief Fanfare In G, aka the Hare In The Long Grass, Halek Brawl then blows any cobwebs to oblivion. The sort of triumphant ensemble march so enamoured of the Albions, this gets the full folk-rock, as in rock. Those missing any medievalism, will appreciate the presence of shawm, even if unable to quite remember what it is. A name arguably conspicuously absent is that of John Kilpatrick, perhaps, unlike the Birthday Bash, one melodeon seeming enough here. But, to make up that loss, the boy Benji, son of John, takes lead vocal for a newer song, joined by the boy Blair, the sense being of the batons being passed on, and to safe hands at that.
Those who have scanned the picture of the sleeve may be wondering quite where and when the Tam might be to make his appearance, but need wait no more, for it is to the title track that he lends his vocal. I have to say I didn’t and couldn’t quite recognise him, such the cracks and falter in his delivery, each most uncharacteristic, and possibly asked of him, so as to imbue the song with a time passing gravitas. Actually a little shocking, without that idea to soften the surprise. Having heard him sing recently and as well as ever, at Hartlepool, this has to be intentional. It works but it seems a waste of his golden larynx.
WORTHY COMPANION PIECE
I like this record, but am a little uncertain whether it will spread much wider than the existing (and diminishing) fanbase of all things Albion and related. Undoubtedly huge fun to make, it is near as much to listen to, and, for those with a penchant for any of the players here assembled, will prove a worthy companion piece to what may well exist for many as mainly vinyl.
For old time’s sake (and a lack of new), here’s the original One For Dan, from Whetstone era Cock & Bull Band:
Dave Whetstone: Bandcamp