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Women In Folk
Park Records PRKCD62
This compilation from Park Records unites a clutch of female voices working in British folk, with ten of the eighteen tracks showcasing Park artists. Well-established names in the shape of Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span), Jacqui McShee (Pentangle) and June Tabor rub shoulders with more recent additions to the scene: Bill Jones and Nancy Kerr are both recent winners in the BBC Folk Awards' Horizon (Best Newcomer) category while Prior's daughter Rose Kemp and singer/songwriter Abbie Lathe represent another new generation. Pure class is added in the form of Karen Matheson (voice of innovative Scottish band Capercaillie) and Kathryn Tickell, Northumbrian pipe and fiddle virtuoso and acclaimed composer.
There's a fair variety to entertain here, from straight traditional to contemporary acousticity to jazz-tinged folk with a low key pace venturing occasionally into cheery brass- or pipe-fuelled toe-tappingness. Tracks are taken from recent albums with the exception of the previously-unreleased Forgiveness, an uninspiring folk/rocker from the Jennifer Cutting All-Stars featuring Prior. Matheson's tracks from The Dreaming Sea shine, as do Tickell's own compositions from The Gathering. Abbie Lathe's Rain from the album Bib & Tuck with Prior and Kemp is a highlight too.
Tricky chaps, samplers: their value depends on how the content tallies with your personal taste. This one is something of a Curate's Egg according to mine, and one might expect from the title a wider range than is covered here, but it's well worth a listen.
Mel McClellan - February 2003
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Folk & Acoustic
