Folk Festival, Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge 27-30 July

Review by Jeremy Searle
Photographs by Robin Hynes

In its 42nd year the Cambridge Folk Festival still retains it’s pre-eminence as the finest of its kind.  Even this year, when there were a couple of disappointing major artists, and if judged by the free time between artists one wants to see the bill was perhaps a little thin compared to recent years, there were still delights to be savoured and performances to be devoured.

It’s a truism that Cambridge, like any similar event, is not one festival but 10,000.  For some it’s a chance to camp in front of Stage 1 and watch 90% of the artists appear in front of you.  For others it’s a chance to sit in the sun with friends and beer, listening to (but not really seeing) some of the best music around.  For many, including me, it’s a split between catching a few “must-sees” and wandering around in the hope of those spontaneous moments that define the event and live in the memory, and as ever, Cambridge didn’t disappoint on that front.

Thursday

Things kick off on Thursday in the Club Tent, where Emily Barker, leader singer and main songwriter for the rather wonderful but sadly dormant Low Country, plays with her latest venture, The Red Clay Halo.  The music is definitely not the Low Country, it’s more slightly upbeat chamber-pop, and while Emily still has that gorgeous voice, she doesn’t use it to full effect, and the songs don’t engage quite as much as they have done in the past.  Ultimately it’s a bit disappointing.  Things look up rapidly though with the arrival of Mawkin.  This young folk band fronted by the brothers Delarre have been making some noise on the scene over the past year, and judging by this set it’s entirely justified.  Scarily musically accomplished, but not in that “look how young I am and how fast I can play” approach beloved by far too many, they present an interesting take on traditional folk that sits halfway between a ceilidh band and a listening one.  Occasionally it sits a trifle uncomfortably, but in the main it’s refreshing and energising, and as with all the best sets, far too short.

Friday

The bill for Friday promises much, and starts off on a high with the Richard Thompson interview In the Club Tent.  Famously private, he is highly entertaining for an hour while giving absolutely nothing away, and my only slight disappointment is that “Genesis Hall” gets outvoted in favour of “Meet On The Ledge.”  But there’s “Dimming of the Day”, a rousing singalong to “Don’t Sit On My Jimmy Shands”, and a haunting “Gethsemane”, so all in all it’s hard to imagine the day starting better.

A bit of a gap ensues until it’s time for Tift Merritt to strut her stuff on the Main Stage.  With the redoubtable James Walbourne as sideman, and the famously friendly Cambridge audience, it’s hers for the taking.  But she blows it.  Coming on in a low-cut top and tight jeans, she throws more shapes than Keith Richards, plays her piano standing up (or bending over, to reveal even more of her cleavage) and generally expects an audience, most of whom have never heard of her let alone heard her, to whoop at every opportunity.  Unsurprisingly they don’t, much to her annoyance.  She works hard, but only on “Wait It Out” does she seem to be feeling it rather than merely playing it.  Still, she gradually brings the crowd round and by the closing “Shadow In The Way” they’re with her.  But it’s only a score draw, when with a little less posing and a little more feeling it could have been an emphatic win.

No time for pondering that now though, as Seth Lakeman takes the stage.  Because of traffic problems he only arrives on site after Tift Merritt has left the stage, but folk’s current poster boy doesn’t disappointment.  In his usual trio format his heavy, intense, attacking sound takes the tent by storm, with “Lady of the Sea” being the pick of a highlight-studded set.

It’s a tough call next, but as I’ve already seen The Broken Family Band I decide to miss their Main Stage set and head over to Stage 2 for Tom Russell.  He’s now split with long-time compadre Andrew Hardin and has one Michael Martin with him on guitar.  He’s still grumpy though – this time Bristol and Bristol audiences get it in the neck throughout the weekend – but resplendent in a purple and gold shirt he delivers a magnificent set.  Increasingly iconic, and looking like he belongs on Mount Rushmore, he’s found a niche from where he delivers brutal state-of-the-nation reports as well as his traditional Bukowski-esque tales.  Although a lot more concerned with mortality and age than he used to be (“The Pugilist at 59” is desperate), it’s the politics that dominate (the set includes “California Snow”, “Stealing Electricity” and “Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall”, a superb summary of the pointlessness of the latest US anti-immigration wheeze).  Michael Martin plays well, but he has big shoes to fill and he’s not quite there yet.  But Russell takes the tent by storm, an object lesson in how to win an unfamiliar audience.

Time to hurtle back to Stage 1 for Marcia Ball to deliver this years blues set.  Sitting cross-legged at a keyboard, she looks more like the chair of the local Women’s Institute than the award-garlanded blues belter that she is.  Her set and band are both good and tight, but in the main there’s little to distinguish her from a lot of other similar performers.  The moment worth waiting for though, is her version of Randy Newman’s “Louisana 1927”, a song getting a lot of outings in these post-Katrina days.  Shivers run down the spine, and pain bleeds out from the stage as she sings “they’re trying to wash us away”.  A moment, a veritable moment.

After a pause to recover it’s time for the mighty Richard Thompson.  In the wake of so many great albums and so many great shows superlatives are redundant, suffice it to say that no matter how many times you see him his guitar playing never loses its capacity to amaze, and his songwriting is still as deep and true as ever.  Tonight two of the three best are “Beeswing” and an incandescent “Cooksferry Queen”.  Heading the list though, and by some distance, is the little performed “Persuasion”, on which Christine Collister joins him.  As Thompson sings “I will always be a man who’s open to…” and Christine comes in on “Persuasion” the temperature in the tent drops 10 degrees and there’s a collective shiver of earthquake proportions.  It’s a great performance and one unlikely to be bettered, or even equalled - or so I thought, but more of that later.  The set ends with a rocking “Valerie” and it’s time to wait for the much-touted Amadou and Mariam.  Now, this is not my area of expertise by any means, but I really don’t see what’s so special about them, compared so say, Tinariwen, who appeared last year.  It’s all good foot-stomping stuff, but their blend of Memphis and Mali just doesn’t do it for me, so I retire from the fray for much chat and more beer.  One unfortunate consequence of this is that I miss Cambridge institution Peter Buckley-Hill’s now legendary midnight set in the field, but you can’t have everything.

Saturday

Reeling from this I head to the Main Stage for Tom Russell’s second set.  With an earlier timeslot, and a more sedate audience, he’s more reflective this time around, featuring the likes of “St Olav’s Gate”, but he indulges his newly-discovered populist side again and has the crowd screaming on cue for “Haley’s Comet”.  It’s another fine set, and a whole new bunch of fans.

After a brief gap (where the required amount of beer was taken) the much anticipated Teddy Thompson is up, and I have to say, detains me for no more than three songs.  He deserves a better hearing, but there’s something about his performance and persona that grates, something to do with bitterness and something to do with coldness, that urges me towards the door.  Ah well, perhaps another time.



So, with a sense of duty and not much else, it’s over to Stage 2 for Tift Merritt’s second appearance.  And what a change.  Gone is the low-cut top, the long curls and most of the posing.  She’s positively demure in a black and white dress and a pony tail, works for it, and as a result gets it.  It’s a fine set, only duplicating about 50% of yesterdays, and shows just what she’s capable of.  She’s cheered to the echo, and rightly so.

It’s a wrench to leave, as John Tams and Barry Coope are up next, but the sole opportunity to hear Rachel Unthank and The Winterset can’t be passed up, so it’s hotfoot to the Club Tent.  Another of British folks’ great hopes, she and her band sing sublimely and play beautifully, particularly Jackie Oates on viola and a strange Indian accordion-like instrument.  This is traditional folk as it should be but rarely is, with Unthank singing in her native accent, harmonies to die for, and an assured and engaging stage presence.  Fun too, part of the equation that’s often forgotten, in which vein pianist Brenda O’Hooley’s soundchecking while singing 80’s AOR classics (lets hear it for “Eye of the Tiger”) sets the tone.


Not time to waste, so back to Stage 2 for Mozaik, an all-star band set up by Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, and featuring Appalachian fiddler and banjo player Bruce Molsky (look out for an interview and a review of his latest album appearing on the site soon).  This is the set where the old hands show they can still cut it.  It’s a bit muso at times, with discourses on time signatures and the like, but when you play the tunes like Mozaik anything can be forgiven.

Toes tapping and heart uplifted it’s time for a break and a chat before catching Jim Causley in the Club Tent.  And yet more spontaneous serendipity ensues as I arrive a bit early and catch the last two songs by BBC Young Folk Award winners Bodega.  This sort of thing is not normally my cup of tea, but this lot’s infectious enthusiasm, blistering cover of Dylan’s “Wagon Wheel” and generally wide-eyed delight are irresistible, and another CD finds its way into my already overloaded bag.


Then it’s Mr. Causley, chalk to Bodega’s cheese.  As camp as Christmas and endlessly entertaining, his style perhaps overshadows his classic folk voice and style, most evident on current folk favourite “Prickle Eyed Bush” and old warhorse “John Barleycorn”, where he shows that a perhaps over-familiar song, performed in the classic style still has power and emotion if you know where to find it.  Hugely enjoyable.


A brief pause and The Broken Family Band take the stage, and after a low key start, tear the place apart.  Steven Adams is on fine sardonic form, Emily Barker sings again, everything is gloriously loose and ramshackle, and as the whole tent yells out “You can send me flowers…but I won’t arrange them/You can call me…at any sensible time” we are transcendent, we are one, and we are having the time of our lives.


As I stagger out of the tent towards Stage 1 there’s inevitably a sense of looming anti-climax, as what can possibly better that?  Los de Abajo give it a fair shot though, with their punk mestizo and 100 mph energy.  Again, no idea if it’s any good, but it’s loud, energetic and fun, and a good way to finish the night.

Sunday

The final day of the festival starts with Rodrigo y Gabriela on Stage 1.  Masters of the acoustic guitar, they blend flamenco, folk, jazz and lots more.  But here’s a thing.  It seems that the audience are cheering the virtuosity more than the music, as evidenced after their frankly appalling “Stairway to Heaven” (Why, for pity’s sake, why?).  If they are, what’s the difference between cheering them and flashing devil horns at some spandexed metal god, and does it matter? It does to me, but John Tams and Barry Coope await so I eschew the musing and settle down for the music.

From the first notes of Shaker hymn “Lay Me Low” to the final excerpt from Tams’ “Steel” cycle for the Radio 2 Radio Ballads series they are predictably magnificent.  “All Clouds the Sky”, Tams epic paean to the long gone fishing industry, is the highlight, but “Amelia, “Harry Stone” and the rest are all superb.  A magnificent set from a folk icon, whose passion and anger burn as bright now as they did when he started out forty years ago.  Tams brings and articulates a sense of community to Cambridge, secular not religious, and we and the festival are the better for it.

Arriving early at Stage 2 I catch the last 10 minutes of Ezio.  Never a cool band, damned by Tony Blair’s inclusion of “Cancel Today” in his Desert island Discs, they have continued on making fine records that never quite get wither the critical acclaim they deserve.  But catching “Black Boots On Latin Feet” and “Saxon Street” brings a smile of rediscovered pleasure and I regret not seeing the rest of their set.


Van Eyken is up next.  They are fronted by Tim Van Eyken, the 1998 BBC Young Folk Award winner, who has never quite fulfilled his potential until his current superb “Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves” album.  Also featured are Nancy Kerr and Oliver Knight, and together they deliver a set of gentle, reflective and deeply emotive folk, including their unique take on “John Barleycorn”.  It’s perhaps a little early in the day for them, but they’ve found a new angle on old music and are set fair to be stalwarts of the scene for years to come.


Later I catch a brief bit of Nickel Creek’s second set on Stage 2, but  they seem to bear the same resemblance to bluegrass (or indeed anything else) as The Eagles do to The Byrds, and I make a hasty exit.  After the usual chat and beer interlude I find myself in the Club Tent again, always the best place to spot something good (if you don’t like what’s on now, there’ll be someone else along in 15 minutes), and I find myself sitting comfortably when Chris and Kellie While take the stage.  Chris is of course a major player on the folk scene, and her daughter is fast becoming one, and together their voices work magic on Richard Thompson’s “Devonside”, the McGarrigles “Mendocino” (where Eddi Reader gets up from the audience to join them), and most unexpectedly, a sublime take on Thompson’s “Persuasion” that almost matches last nights. To hear two great versions of this gem in the space of two days is a bonus beyond price.

Immediately afterwards I catch the first part of Newton Faulkner’s set, a dreadlocked young Brit with a percussive guitar style, and potential that should give Jack Johnson nightmares.  I’d like to hear more, but must away to Stage 1 for today’s highlight, Emmylou Harris.  Only, and this is a painful thing to write, it not only isn’t, it feels like the only “contractual obligation” set of the entire festival.  The last time I saw her she was with Spyboy, was clearly energised and invigorated by their presence, and delivered a challenging, forward looking and basically wonderful set, all in that voice.  This time she has a couple of people from the “Ballad of Sally Rose” days in the band, and appears to be coasting.  There’s still the voice, but the band are dreadful, particularly when compared to the Hot Band, the Nash Ramblers or Spyboy, the choice of songs poor and the performance lacklustre.  We forgive our idols much, but if I’d paid £30 to see this (the going rate on her tour) I’d feel cheated.

It’s a sad end to the festival (I eschew the final dance bands on both stages), the more so because in the past few years, despite the sterling effort of folk performers, it’s been the Americana artists that have carried all before them.  Rodney Crowell, Mary Gauthier, Gillian Welch, these have been the stars.

This year though Cambridge was reclaimed by the young turks of British folk, with Rachel Unthank, Jim Causley, Bodega, Mawkin and Van Eyken all delivering great performances and showing the way forward.  But despite them, and despite William Elliott Whitmore, Richard Thompson, John Tams and others, the band of the festival was undoubtedly the Broken Family Band.  The two sets that I saw rank as the best I have ever seen them, and the Club Tent is right up there with the all-time best gigs.  Long may they flourish, and long may Cambridge, the finest folk festival in the land, flourish also.