It's 21 years since Eliza Carthy began her career as a professional musician, and the lady who kickstarted the still remarkably healthy contemporary British folk scene is celebrating in style. Next month sees the release of Wayward Daughter, a double-album of traditional and self-written songs recorded throughout her career, but first comes an even more intriguing tour.
Eliza Carthy specialises in surprises, and she was joined here by a 12-piece celebrity folk big band that included two brass players, a three-piece string section and percussion. On guitar and keyboards was the inventive Jim Moray, who also opened the show, backed by a house band that included Bellowhead's fiddler Sam Sweeney, singer and viola-player Lucy Farrell, and melodeon exponent Saul Rose. Carthy's songs were mostly taken from the forthcoming album, but with brave new instrumentation that at times made her sound like a rousing rival to Bellowhead.
She started quietly with a reworking of Diego's Bold Shore, a whalers' song that she originally recorded with Waterson:Carthy, and treated here with her own piano work and string backing. Then came a drifting re-working of Child Among the Weeds, written by her aunt Lal Waterson. A furious, brassy calypso, Mr Walker, followed, then a slinky treatment of Rolling Sea, originally recorded for the Rogues Gallery album of pirate and shanty songs. Her finest vocal work was on the Latin-edged Grey Gallito, originally recorded with Salsa Celtica, and she showed off her finest fiddle in a duet with Sweeney on the frantic climax to Mother, Go Make My Bed.
Jim Moray's opening set included a big-band reworking of his best-known songs, with a string-backed treatment of Sweet England, a stomping All You Pretty Girls. But it was unfortunate that this exceptional show was marred by bad sound during Moray's set, with his vocals at times swamped by the exuberant band.
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