Americana UK 2008 Report of the Cambridge Folk Festival

Cambridge Folk Festival at Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge 30 July – 3 August, by Jeremy Searle (Photos: Robin Hynes)

On Thursday evening it’s left to family bluegrass band Cherryholmes to fly the Stars and Stripes and frankly, they’re an embarrassment. There are any number of better bluegrass bands out there, neither of the sons can sing and, with the honourable exception of Cia Leigh on lightning banjo the playing is adequate at best. Elsewhere 3 Daft Monkeys offer bouncy crusty sing-along’s to great effect, Laura Marling might have been good but she was too quiet and the audience too loud to really tell, and UK duo folk Megson, while competent, haven’t really progressed as far as they suggested they might after last year. Unannounced guests Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo busk gamely in the beer tent, but such a raucous environment is not the best place for their subtly exquisite chamber-folk.

Friday is a definite step up. Emily and the Halos play outside and show what they’re capable of, and Eliza Carthy premieres her new, all self-written, album. It’s dark and uncompromising and while not all the audience are sure what to make of it, songs like “Mr Magnifico” and “Oranges and Seasalt” appear future classics. The stars of the day though are Australians The Waifs, returning with their new album for the first time since they swept all before them in 2003. A little bit country, a little bit folk, a little bit rock, the new songs cut the mustard, the old ones are as great as they ever were and the set is a triumph, the ovation prolonged. Later on the Club Tent offers the massively impressive Jake Cogan, yet another of the new British folk voice emerging at the moment, and the slightly older Mawkin:Causley. Fronted by Jim Causley, possessor of one of the warmest and best voices in folk today (and also folk’s biggest flirt) and driven by the Delarre brothers quickfire playing their two styles haven’t quite gelled yet, but they are always worth a listen. As is Billy Bragg, though he too is a mixed bag. When he’s good, as on “Between the Wars” he’s very good indeed, but when he’s bad, as with one too many preaching to the choir lectures, he’s dreadful. Fortunately the good outweighs the bad, and when he encores with “The New St. George” with Martin Carthy and Chris Wood it’s a real “Cambridge moment” that brings a tear to the eye. He’s followed by the Levellers who, despite having a new album out pretty do much the same set they’ve been playing for the past decade. It’s a good set, their hearts are in the right places and their passion undoubted, but they do feel like a band stuck in a moment they can’t get out of, to borrow a phrase.

Saturday opens with Stephanie Finegan in the Club Tent. Part anti-folk, part performance poet, she’s an unexpected highlight with which to begin. Chris Wood is also surprisingly chirpy on the main stage and perhaps as a consequence delivers one of the best sets he’s ever played. He is the maker of some of the hardest hitting folk out there, and “The Cottagers Reply” with its sarcastic fury at second home owners is a highlight. He’s followed by Devon Sproule, whose jaunty set of folk with hints of jazz is the perfect thing for a sunny afternoon, though the suspicion remains that she’s caught a wave and her popularity outstrips her talent somewhat. This is something that cannot be said of Bella Hardy, whose every performance seems to be better than the last. Playing in the Club Tent for surely the last time before she moves on to bigger things, her traditional singing, notably “Heart Hill” is simply jaw-dropping.

Following such a display of quintessential Englishness the Americans come back with a vengeance. First up is Elizabeth Cook, who has a background classically country (father jailed for running moonshine, eleven siblings etc.) and a voice to match, and delivers an unadorned performance so unaffected it recalls the early days of Iris Dement, complete with a spot of hoedown dancing. Next comes the Godfather of new Orleans music Allen Toussaint, who has 50 years of live experience and it shows. At one with the crowd from the off, hits like “Working in A Coal Mine” and a rock solid band challenge The Waifs for set of the festival. k.d. lang by contrast, does her thing with her amazing voice but never really catches fire, and the same could be said for the evening’s headliners, Simon Emmerson’s Imagined Village project. Inevitably truncated from the powerful and inspiring show which toured last year, it loses something in the process and although it remains a triumphant fusion of English musics it’s more a set of some highlights than a sustained success. In particular it’s a pity that Benjamin Zephaniah, despite being present, doesn’t reprise his intense and jaw-dropping updating of “Tam Lin”, one of the two highlights of last years tour together with Eliza Carthy stomping all over the stage tin “Cold Haily Rainy Night.”

Sunday is the weakest day of the weekend and judging by the number of yellow squares of grass on the campsites, a significant number of attendees agree. Despite the presence of Judy Collins (cabaret nostalgia), Kila (by the numbers diddley diddley) and Tim O’Brien (fearsome talent but little conviction or emotion) the day is saved by three widely differing performers. Seth Lakeman’s furious folk stomps bring a welcome breath of energy and commitment, indie folk darlings Noah And The Whale show that there’s much more to them than a catchy summer single and Ruth Notman, aided by Saul Rose, overcomes nerves to show exactly why, as only 18, she is a folk star in the making.

Those three aside though it’s a bit of a desert, and while Cambridge will always attract a loyal audience just because it is Cambridge, the bill needs some attention (as does that perennial source of complaint, the low quality food), because in these days of half a dozen festivals every weekend in the summer, Cambridge cannot afford to rest on its’ (many) laurels. Overall a good weekend, but not a great one.