REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

 

 


 

 

 
VARIOUS ARTISTS - There Was A Lad

VARIOUS ARTISTS - There Was A Lad
Lochshore CDLDL7008

The lad in question is Robert Burns.  Things must be different in Scotland but,  south of the Tweed and the Solway sands, not much noise has been made about the 250th anniversary of his birth. We can be very parochial in England. So I welcome this compilation of Burns songs from recordings of artists on the Lochshore / KRL labels. Sixty minutes in the company of this great embracer of humanity is time well spent.

The featured artists are Old Blind Dogs, Steam Jenny, Wendy Weatherby, Kingdom, Borealis, Iron Horse, Hugh MacDiarmid (reciting Address To A Haggis), The Hudson Swan Band, Gaberlunzie, Canterach and The Bells. The songs are  nearly all well-kent Burns favorites. Less familiar are Canterach’s pro-Jacobite There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Home and Wendy Weatherby’s astonishingly raunchy John Anderson, My Jo  - the version in my copy of the collected works is decorous. Overall, it’s a satisfying compilation. There’s a bit of tartan shortbread to digest, but some surprises too. Borealis does a jazz version of The Diel’s Awa’, while The Bells close the album with a rocked-up Auld Lang Syne. My favorite is Old Blind Dogs’ Song For Autumn, sung by Ian Benzie with reference to Dick Gaughan’s version.

The notes to this CD are very weak – just a listing of songs, artists, copyright and albums. This is a budget album, but Lochshore could still have made more of an effort for the lad.
 
Tony Hendry

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This album was reviewed in Issue 84 of The Living Tradition magazine.