English Dance And Song - Spring 2014

It's tempting to call Sara Grey an institution, but this would sound too matronly for such a light-spirited performer, whose music and personality have brought pleasure to both sides of the Atlantic for many decades. She is simply incapable of doing anything disappointing, so it's a delight to review her latest release. Sara's warm voice, with its trilling vibrato, is full of wisdom and humour, while her relaxed banjo playing is backed with sparse grace by Ben Paley's fiddle and guitar and vocal harmony from Kieron Means, Sara's son and long-time collaborator (and excellent solo performer in his own right).
As always, the songs are rulers here, and what stories they have to tell! There's lost John Dean, released from prison in Kentucky as an experiment to test the tracking skills of blood hounds (he escaped their scent and was never found!), Belle Starr, famous for harbouring outlaws and immortalised by Woody Guthrie, and the famous boxing match between the English 'Unicorn' Thomas Sayers and the 'Yankee' John C. Heenan. In Sara's wonderfully informative sleeve notes, the singers are just as important as the songs, and we learn that the searingly beautiful 'The Colorado Trail' was sung by a wounded Texas rancher in the late
1800s to his doctor, who wrote down the words. I was especially pleased to hear 'Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie' on here, with which Sara and Kieron enraptured me in a live concert some years ago, and a revisit of the eerily beautiful 'Lonesome Roving Wolves', which Sara also recorded with Ellie Ellis back in 1981.
To top it all, there's a fantastic 'tall tale' in the form of 'The Boaster', which Sara says took two months to learn (when you hear it you'll understand why!) while a ballad from the singing of the wonderful Almeda Riddle, 'Merry Willow Tree' reminds us of our rich, shared musical heritage. I've played this album many times already and it brings me more joy each time I hear it. Quite simply: you need this in your life.
Clare Button

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fRoots

Sara's latest CD brings another wide-ranging collection of songs showcasing her distinctive performing style. She's been touring in the company of her son Kieran, himself no mean guitarist and singer, so it's natural that Kieron, along with fiddle ace Ben Paley (son of veteran Tom) furnishes Sara with top­grade accompaniment.
As before, virtually all of the material is drawn from old-time heritage, ably researched by Sara from the hidden corners of that tradition where the ring of the familiar often coexists with the unexpected twist or unknown variant. Thus, opening narrative The Ballad Of Lost John Dean carries resonances of a field holler, while the rousing (and fun) disc finale Rocky Island closely echoes Shady Grove and The Merry Willow Tree is a satisfying variant of The Golden Vanity. Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie (from the singing of Alan Lomax's sister) turns out to be a cow­ boy reworking of old ballad The Ocean Burial.
Sara also makes a persuasive case for Bright Sunny South being an entirely different song from well-known Sweet Sunny South, initial and structural resemblances notwithstanding. Bright Sunny South may have been ensconced in Sara's live repertoire for some time, but it still provokes a frisson of discovery overlaying its partial familiarity. The value of Sara's enterprise is also, invariably, heightened by the honest crediting of sources in her suitably detailed yet economic liner notes. For, however obscure the song, Sara always finds a good reason for its unearthing.
Four tracks are performed a-cappella.
Lonesome Roving Wolves, done in duet mode, gives a striking demonstration of how closely Sara and Kieron's mother-and-son voices work together in vibrato-rich harmony. Sara's own voice then rises unadorned and solo on the charming tale of Old Dolores, delighting in bringing this 'sweetheart' song to her listeners gathered round the campfire, while she audibly relishes the wordy challenge of The Boast­ er just as much as the telling of the allegorical pugilistic tale of The Yankee And The Unicorn.
The contrast between rancher's love song The Colorado Trail and Henry Thomas's Bull Doze Blues almost couldn't be greater, but Sara tackles both with equal facility, with the extra benefit of Kieron's expert guitar and voice backing her on the former. The archetypal West Virginia modality of Cherry River Line trundles along nicely with full instrumental complement. And the recording is given an exemplary balance by Fellside's Paul Adams, who completely understands these musicians and their joyous and keen internal dynamic.
David Kidman

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Stirrings

You can't hurry Sara Grey. You can't just jostle her along. She goes at her own stately pace, touring when she wants, recording when she feels like it. like a sturdy buckboard, Sara has only one gear, marked "Unhurried". You could say her performances have a similar one-speed quality about them, but what you're hearing is a constant subtle shift in pace and register rather than a series of lurches and swings. Down In Old Dolores marks her latest visit to the studio, and it's ... unhurried.
The first thing you hear is the quiet chuckle of Sara's banjo.
Her playing has often attracted the epithet "deceptively simple", but in fact there's nothing deceptive about it. Simple is what it inarguably is. I'll wager that no banjo picker has played fewer notes in their career than Sara Grey, and she's been picking half a century and more. Enough is as good as a feast would seem to be her motto, and I've no quarrel with that. Her son Kieran Means weighs in with occasional guitar and backing vox, and here and there Ben Paley adds some authentically scrapy fiddle. It's a few years since I heard Kieron, and I was unprepared for his rich, slurry baritone, but it makes a dandy contrast to his mother's airy tones,
Sara has tended to specialise over the years in the New England and Appalachian repertoires, but here she ranges freely from sea to shining sea. She revisits the spooky Iowan song lonesome Roving Wolves, first heard on her Fellside debut Making The Air Resound back in the day, and zigzags round the southwest states for the likes of Old Dolores, Ballad Of lost John Dean and The Colorado Trail as well as picking round her own backyard for Bright Sunny South, The Yankee And The Unicorn and Rocky Island. The songs gathered here cover a range of moods, but all seem infused with that wistful melancholy so characteristic of American frontier song. You also get a skirt-swinging banjo tune, Black Bear On The Mountain, halfway down the trade.
Sara's in good voice throughout, You can hear the occasional huskiness on the unaccompanied selections that discreetly reminds you she's well into her eighth decade-not to mention the fluttering vibrato that she ascribes to her possession of a double (or bifid) uvula. (A condition manifested by 2% of the population-l looked it up so you didn't have to.)
Down In Old Dolores shows Sara Grey in as fine a fettle as ever. It's a collection without a weak spot: genial, tuneful and ... unhurried. Or did I say that already?
Raymond Greenoaken

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Tykes News

The title track of Sara's latest CD, sung in solo unaccompanied glory, tells of an old town down in New Mexico (or is it Colorado!), allowing Sara to use a photo of an old adobe hacienda, complete with string of drying chillies, on the cardboard cover - could it be that the jewel case is a Thing Of The Past?
Elsewhere, Sara and Kieron ring the changes. As well as their consummate banjo and guitar accompaniments, on Lonesome Roving Wolves they do a haunting a capella duet, while old-time-fiddler-in-chief Ben Paley joins them for Doc Boggs' wonderful Bright Sunny South, the sprightly Johnson Boys, the undeniably lonesome Cherry River Line, and the highly danceable Black Bear on the Mountain and Rocky Island - the former a tune without words and the latter a tune with words!
If you know Sara's work, there's not much else to say except that Dolores is an entirely fitting and Up-to-the­ mark addition to her considerable body of work. If you don't know Sara's work, you will be able to buy this album and have your socks knocked off by the sheer energy and musicality it contains.
Even Paul Adams of Fellside, who is usually never stuck for a few hundred words, can only manage a couple of quotes and a short paragraph in the press release. Don't worry, Paul. The music speaks for itself ...
Alan Rose

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