Traditional and original folk music, beautifully delivered with a contemporary feel.
Seasonal Christmas offerings apart, this is Kate Rusby’s first album since her collection of covers on ‘Hand Me Down’ in 2020. As such it will be warmly welcomed by her many fans and they will not be disappointed. Returning to her folk roots, ‘When They All Looked Up’ is a collection of reimagined traditional songs alongside original compositions, all delivered with her trademark vocals and set to gorgeous accompaniment.
With a career spanning over thirty years and honorary doctorates from three different universities in her home county of Yorkshire, it’s hard to remember a time before the ‘Barnsley Nightingale’ was sweeping all before her at the BBC folk awards and being nominated for the Mercury Prize at the age of 26 in 1999 – rare for someone in this genre.
Recorded at Rusby’s own studio and with husband Damien O’Kane producing and contributing guitars and drum programming, the album is very much a family affair. To open up, the singer has delved into her precious Roxburghe Ballad Collection of largely seventeenth-century songs for ‘How The World Goes’ with its infectious refrain “From the top of my head to my toes”. The opener establishes the contemporary feel that is notable throughout the eleven songs, whether they are new arrangements of traditional folk tunes or more recent compositions.
The single release, Rusby’s composition ‘Let Your Light Shine’ is a mother’s heartfelt message to the couple’s two daughters, now in their teens. It features Josh Clark on percussion, Duncan Lyall on Moog and synths and Texan Grammy winner Ron Block on banjo. There’s also a burst of cornet playing from Gary Wyatt and Lee Clayson, both eminent brass band musicians. Add to the mix some gorgeous choral support from the senior section of the Barnsley Youth Choir, directed by Mat Wright, and the song seems certain to become a staple of choirs up and down the land, just as Jim Clements’ arrangement of Rusby’s ‘Underneath The Stars’ has done.
The 19th century poem ‘Ettrick’ by Alicia Ann Spottiswoode celebrates the passage of the seasons and the joy of riding through the Scottish lowlands. Rusby provided the tune, as she also has for ‘The Moon Man’, a lullaby with lyrics taken from a book of children’s poems, this one by the American Mildred Plew Meigs. Rusby adores this creative process, these two adaptations capturing what the singer describes as “giving life to words on a page…..setting a bird free into the world again”.
Next comes another of her tunes set to a traditional lyric from the Roxburghe collection, ‘Judges and Juries’ being the lament of a transported prisoner who may never see his home again. After such sadness comes the hilarious tale of ‘The Barnsley Youth and Temperance Society’. Reaching us via a circuitous route involving her own folk-singer father, then journalist Shay Healy and The Dubliners’ Shaun Cannon, Rusby recorded the song to ensure its survival, there being no evidence of its existence elsewhere. Involving the corrupting effects of alcohol upon an abstemious group of teetotallers, it’s an irreverent and colourful tale that begs for a live performance.
Two tender ballads follow before another comic gem, ‘The Yorkshire Couple’, a song Rusby has been singing for over 30 years. Written by Pontefract’s Jim Mackie, the marriage isn’t all it should be and there’s a delightful twist at the end.
Closing this brilliant collection with a piece of social history from the modern era, the title ‘Coal Not Dole’ speaks for itself. The making of the album coincided with the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike, which Rusby witnessed the effects of, coming herself from mining stock. A poem by a miner’s wife, Kay Sutcliffe, and set to music by Paul Abrahams, the song resonates with the shared grief of a community, the sumptuous brass band arrangement underpinning Rusby’s plaintive vocal. It’s a fitting end to a collection of songs that never fail to inspire.
