JUNE TABOR'S LATEST RECORDING

released September 2003

          Long, long ago, almost 40 years ago in fact, I borrowed a record from my school library. It was called The Jupiter Book of  Ballads, and the most important thing about it (apart from a stunning recitation of McGonagall’s Tay Bridge Disaster by John Laurie, alias Private Fraser of Dad’s Army) was that some of the Ballads were sung. To someone accustomed to seeing them only as printed lyrics in a school anthology of poetry, this was a revelation. And so began a life-long love affair with the Ballads of the English (and Scots) speaking peoples.

         A strong story-line has always attracted me, no matter what a song’s origins might be, and in the Ballad you have story-telling at its stark, urgent best. The narrative can be brutally direct, subtly oblique, or a mixture of the two, but it always unfolds itself vividly in the mind’s eye as a sequence of unforgettable images. The Ballad-Maker, whoever he/she/they might have been, never missed anything that matters. In this most intensely dramatic of all poetic forms, it is the music that controls phrasing, expression and the shape of dialogue. It is unique and timeless in its appeal.

            Consequently, on almost all my solo albums from Airs and Graces (1976) and  Ashes and Diamonds (1977) to the most recent Aleyn (1997), A Quiet Eye (1999) and Rosa Mundi (2001), and indeed, on the collaborations both with Maddy Prior (Silly Sisters,1976,  No More to the Dance,1988) and Oysterband (Freedom and Rain, 1990) you will find a Ballad.

  And from a simple act of theft (because I didn’t take that LP back – I’ve still got it – and to think that I became a Librarian !) an entire album of Ballads has finally evolved. They come from the wild Debateable Lands of the Anglo-Scottish Border, from Scotland and from the Appalachian Mountains of the South-Eastern United States. They feature both my long-time (and treasured) accompanists Huw Warren and Mark Emerson, and the most recent recruit to our quartet, Tim Harries, as well as a guest appearance by Northumbrian pipes virtuosa Kathryn Tickell, and a re-union with guitarist extraordinary Martin Simpson.

           Each Ballad is the equivalent of a private cinema in your head. As you listen, feel the wind and rain, see the Hunter’s moon rise and catch an echo of hooves on the night air. ”

1. Bonnie James Campbell

words traditional,   tune Tabor

arr. Tabor, Warren, Harries

pub. Topic Records

2. The Duke of Athole’s Nurse

(Click to hear Sample..)

traditional

arr.Tabor, Simpson 

pub.Topic Records

3. The Battle of Otterburn

traditional

arr. Tabor, Tickell

pub. Topic Records

4. Lord Maxwell’s Last Goodnight

(Click to hear Sample..)

words traditional, tune traditional, Tabor   

arr.Tabor, Warren, Emerson, Harries

pub. Topic Records

5. Hughie Graeme

words traditional, tune traditional, Tabor, Emerson 

arr.Tabor,Warren,Emerson,Harries

pub. Topic Records

6. The Border Widow’s Lament

traditional

arr. Tabor,Warren

pub. Topic Records

7. Fair Margaret and Sweet William

(Click to hear Sample..)

traditional

arr.Tabor,Warren,Harries 

pub. Topic Records

8. Rare Willie

traditional

arr. Tabor

pub. Topic Records

9. Young Johnstone

words traditional, tune traditional, Tabor, Simpson  

arr. Tabor, Simpson 

pub. Topic Records

10. The Cruel Mother

traditional arr. Tabor, Emerson 

pub. Topic Records

11. Sir Patrick Spens

      words traditional,

      tune traditional, Tabor  arr.Tabor, Warren, Emerson, Harries

pub. Topic Records

The photographs in the CD booklet were taken by John Haxby in June 2003 at Auchencairn Bay and Old Buittle Tower, a lovingly restored C16th tower house near Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire. For more information about Old Buittle, visit www.theborderers.bravepages.com

AN ECHO OF HOOVES ~ Press