A striking reconnection with the past, as Carter revives the Jones songbook and does the singer proud.

REPLACE IMAGES WITH HI RES

NO MOSS HERE

The ridiculously busy Sam Carter clearly doesn’t like the moss building up around him, seeming to have multiple irons in an always well stoked fire. The past year or so have seen a solo electric album, a tradfolk EP and now this. a record of his remarkable tribute to Nic Jones. Add in his all but membership of The Magpie Arc, more than filling the Martin Simpson sized hole in their live shows, and one wonders for his downtime. Oh, yes, and Peter’s Field, too, alongside Sean Cooney and Eliza Carthy. The devil and idle hands come not to mind.

NEVER KNOWINGLY OVER-EGGED

Nic Jones is a heroic figure, a giant in the firmament of 1970’s folk troubadours. An English Gaughan would not be over-egging it, and certainly well up to Carthy senior comparisons. But with his legacy mired by the tragedy of being largely unable to perform, since, aged 35, a devastating car accident, and with little of his recording history easily accessible, the risk is that, the longer the silence, so the more he will become a forgotten figure. Of his output, only Penguin Eggs, his last and most celebrated release, is easy to come by, no doubt through being cited so often a favourite by so many of the current crop of performing folkies. Count the likes of Rusby, K, Moray, J, and Boden, J, in that list. And now, too, clearly, Carter.

Jones was more than just a consummate interpreter of the tradition, he had also a groundbreaking approach to playing his guitar, an avid enthusiast of applying different tunings, orthodox and otherwise, to further enhance his forthright vocal delivery. He isn’t a singer you can celebrate with a few wan strums. Luckily Carter too has a bit of form on six strings, and, as they say, can sing a bit, too. This concert took place in Glasgow at this year’s Celtic Connections, and was, praise be, recorded.

TAX-FREE

Now you might say that 13 songs, with just one voice and one guitar, that might prove taxing on a modern audience and ear. You’re right, but you’d be wrong. As the set opens, you’d be hard fetched to even realise this a live performance, such is the silence about the performance. Only as the applause comes in that you remember this is all free from revisions and overdubbing. Indeed, that first song, the traditional Master Kilby, is. a magnificent start, pairing Carter’s soaring vocal with his pristine guitar. The shock of the aforementioned applause still resounding, the first song from Penguin Eggs follows, Barrack Street. Jones played fiddle and there was also accompanying accordion on the album version, but here, stripped back, it works, am I allowed to say, better. And is that a distinct echo of Jones’ Kentish burr, creeping into Carter’s timbre?

FLEXIBLE FINGERS & PLOUGHBOY FREE

Carter’s nimble fingers get a real chance to ripple, as the instrumental prologue to Clyde Water begins. His dexterity is joyous to hear, not discounting the equally adept accompanying sinisterity of his other hand, on the neck of his instrument. Is that a word? It is now. Listening both to this performance, and back at any of Jones’s own, it is striking how free of faux ploughboy each are, false memory suggesting all folk singers then embraced that conceit back last century. All the first eight numbers here are Roud’s or Child’s or both, and Seven Gypsies must be around the best known, courtesy Carthy or Christy Moore, via Planxty. Jones’ version eschews the memories of either, and is, or was, and is again, a pleasingly nuanced take.

Another showcase of fingerpicking launches off Billy Don’t You Weep, even ahead the vocals, with their arrival having little perceived effect on the deftness of play. The graceful beauty, then, of Courting Is A Pleasure gets drawn out deliciously, Carter extracting the max and having you think of the truth in the title, whatever else ensues. It sounds so modern, yet, play back the original, and the faithfulness given here, the four plus decades shed in an instant. Possibly the high water mark of the set comes next, with Ten Thousand miles Away, with the sense of distance and the incumbent loneliness both invoked peerlessly. The pathos is wince inducing.

BACK ON THE EDGE OF OUR SEATS

I confess that to follow that is well nigh impossible, and Annan Water, over seven minutes of it, became the first and only song to tax my patience, it proving a good moment to fix a brew. Too similar in cadence a song to the one preceding, perhaps, or maybe just too, call me slight, long. But, revived by strong tea, it feels as if the audience and even Carter took some equivalent benefit, as Ruins By The Shore follows. A song actually written by Jones, it is a poignant and mournfully thoughtful piece, with I and the Glasgow audience again on the edge of our seats.

It’s hits now, if I can call them that, and all from Penguin Eggs. Paul Metsers’ Farewell To The Gold is the first. Carter, for the first time, now embraces the fourth wall of the audience, with a brisk “here we go“. to ease the audience into the first chorus. Strain your ears and, mixed low, you can just about hear them. Or, if you can’t, your imagination can. Or is it you singing?

BACK ON THE SONG SHEET

The Humpback Whale must be, alongside Canadee-I-O, the most fondly remembered songs of the Jones repertoire. Certainly those in the Recital Rooms of Glasgow’s City Hall seemed to feel so, the atmosphere palpably warming from receptive to enraptured. A robust rendition, one feels Carter has relaxed into a safe home straight, his diction now near conversational, in fitting with the unfolding tale. It is lovely to appreciate, and the applause, with cheers, is significantly less restrained. And, yes, it is Canadee-I-O that he follows with. I had forgotten quite how powerful a song it is, and can imagine, on the strength of this, a whole new generation of floor singers will be finding this in their song sheets. Carter really does Jones proud.

Uncertain if the last song might count as encore, but, even if the detail was clipped from the recording, there is a sense of that. Another whaling ballad, and also from the pen of Humpback writer, Harry Robertson, this provides a delicately poised final flourish, as well as the lyrics revealing how Penguin Eggs came to be the title of Jones’ seminal long player. There is a magnificent sense of journey’s end and a privilege to be part of. (Having said, Carter is touring the festival circuit this summer, bringing this show to wider audiences, with ATB hoping to catch him and it at Folk East)

Now, me, I’m going to play the album again. But, to get you in the mood, here is Carter at home, playing Canadee-I-O:

Sam Carter: Website

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