REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

 

 


 

 

 

WILL NOBLE and JOHN COCKING - Yon Green Banks
Veteran VT147CD

Two fine singers performing fifteen of their favourite songs. One half in front of their home crowd in Holmfirth, the other half before a bunch of Essex folk to prove that they go down just as well outside, as inside Yorkshire! Anyone with any experience of this pair will know just what to expect – two voices, sometimes in unison, sometimes verse and verse about, singing traditional songs with straightforward honesty.

Although they don’t include it on the album, the title comes from ‘The Holmfirth Anthem (Pratty Flowers)’, a song they own so conclusively that they maybe don’t feel the need to record it. Instead, they mix such well-known items as, ‘The Jolly Waggoner’, ‘Young Banker’ and ‘The Nutting Girl’ with songs particular to their repertoire, such as, ‘Friezland Ale’, ‘Mrs Oldroyd‘ and the outrageous, ‘Gossip Joan’. There is also a recitation from John (‘Renshaw’s Mule’), while the album opens with my particular favourite, ‘Merry Mountain Child’.

The insert notes are as we have come to expect from Veteran – well-drawn biographies and comprehensive information on each song that is always informative and never dull. Good photographs too.

‘Yon Green Bank’ is undoubtedly a true record of what took place at these two gigs in particular, and Will and John gigs in general – what is known locally as a “reet good do”.

Alan Rose

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This album was reviewed in Issue 65 of The Living Tradition magazine.