Queen Of The Whirl is a celebration of thirty years of silliness and profundity; thirty years of music reimagined, from Billy Bragg to Peggy Seeger, from The Ratcatchers to Imagined Village, from bloody boots in Trafalgar Square to the moors of North Yorkshire, and everywhere in between.
This year, multi-award-winning Eliza Carthy MBE, celebrates 30 years as a professional musician with the release of ‘Queen of The Whirl’, an album of newly
recorded versions of some of the most beloved songs from her career. It will be released as a standard CD and Double 12” vinyl. The album’s 15 tracks have been released across four EP’s before the final release date of November 11th.
The release will be supported by a UK tour in November and December this year.
“This collection is honestly the best and most comprehensively reimagined, replayed representation of my work in English traditional/contemporary music over the last thirty years yet.” Eliza Carthy
Over her thirty years as a professional musician, Eliza’s music has effortlessly crossed boundaries of genre and style. She has toured the world, danced with Hugh Masekela in Ghana; crossed the Prairies, the Alps and the waters of Lake Titicaca, all for the sake of playing the fiddle and spreading the word of English traditional music.
She has two Mercury Music Prize nominations, several BBC Folk Awards, an MBE as well as innumerable other accolades. She has worked with Shakespearean director Barry Rutter, composing music for two of his productions and can also count Kae Tempest, Paul Weller, Nancy Kerr and Billy Bragg in her diverse roster of collaborations. Choosing material from such an illustrious career was a challenging prospect so in true democratic fashion Eliza put it to the good people of Twitter (yes, there are some!) who came up with some surprises as well as obvious crowd pleasers.
From earlier recordings such as 1997’s Eliza Carthy & The Kings of Calicutt through to 2013’s Wayward Daughter, Queen of The Whirl reimagines the best and most popular songs from throughout her career.
From earlier recordings such as 1997’s Eliza Carthy & The Kings of Calicutt through to 2013’s Wayward Daughter, Queen of The Whirl reimagines the best and most popular songs from throughout her career.
Recorded with her trusty band, The Restitution, these new versions include favourites from her break-though Mercury Music Prize nominated album Red Rice(1998): ‘The Snow it Melts the Soonest,’ ‘Stumbling On’ and ‘Accordion Song.’
Winner of the Best Album at BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards (and also Mercury nominated),Anglican, Was born out of Topic Records’ ‘Voice Of the People’ series and from that is ‘ Pretty Ploughboy’ the track which became the album’s
centrepiece.
‘In London So Fair,’ also from the album, is also featured. The earliest songs included come from the album Eliza Carthy & The Kings of Calicutt – ‘Whirly Whorl’ and ‘Good Morning, Mr Walker.’ The later is a tribute to Eliza’s mother, the late, great Norma Waterson, and Slinger Francisco, also known as The Mighty Sparrow, who wrote and recorded Good Morning, Mr Walker in 1968. This new version of Good Morning, Mr Walker is the only track in the collection to feature guests, known collectively as The Sweet Rosemarys , who include Jon Boden and John Spiers, Sheema Mukherjee, Rory MacLeod and the Mighty Sparrow’s bandleader himself, Lane Steinberg.
Listening to these new recordings, no matter how familiar the tracks, is to hear the music afresh. Eliza has never been an artist to stand still; rather, she’s been at the forefront of the music scene pushing her way forward – often in the most unconventional way.
See if you can spot some of the ‘guest artists’ in this brilliant video, released to coincide with the album launch on the 11th.
Queen of The Whirl shows us that her love of traditional music and new ideas is as strong as ever and as she puts it, ‘the whirl keeps going’.
Eliza Carthy & The Restitution on tour 2022:
23 Nov 2022 MASHAM TOWN HALL , MASHAM
24 Nov 2022 DISS CORN HALL, DISS
25 Nov 2022 HOWARD ASSEMBLY ROOMS, LEEDS
26 Nov 2022 LUDLOW ASSEMBLY ROOMS , LUDLOW
28 Nov 2022 THE GLEE CLUB , BIRMINGHAM
29 Nov 2022 BRIGHTON KOMEDIA , BRIGHTON
30 Nov 2022 GLEE CLUB, CARDIFF
01 Dec 2022 TURNER SIMS CONCERT HALL, SOUTHAMPTON
03 Dec 2022 SAGE GATESHEAD, GATESHEAD
04 Dec 2022 BAND ON THE WALL , MANCHESTER
05 Dec 2022 JUNCTION 1, CAMBRIDGE
04 Feb 2023 BARBICAN
For further information please visit www.eliza-carthy.com
