The heady, mind-spinning trawling of genres for absorption into roots music continues to flourish, and arch-searcher Jon Boden’s most recent contribution is straight from the Cabinet of Curiosities – a foray into the genteel art of the parlour song. The two genres are not total strangers to each other – folk themes pervaded parlour songs throughout their existence, but in the sheet-music dominated Victorian and Edwardian eras, when prim singing and formal piano playing were marks of social standing, the simple love-ditties and tales of derring-do of the parlour song were delivered in the soirée-settings of the socially aspiring – one up from field, tavern and music-hall and one down from the concert platform. A cut above the bar-room as Ragtime once was to Jazz.
Rob Harbron (concertina), Ben Nicholls (bass), Sally Hawkins (oboe and fiddle), Sam Sweeney (drums) and M G Boulter (pedal steel) play their part wonderfully alongside Jon in songs of long-gone trades, lost patriots and bygone yearnings. Direct comparisons of the two approaches to traditional material are interesting. It is so easy to imagine a besuited and bow-tied tenor stood at a Victorian upright piano and fervently singing that most parloured of songs ‘The Rose Of Allendale.’ John Boden and the Kings turn this archetypal piece away from formal fireside correctness to the easy warmth of hearth and home. There is also a captivating version of Cyril Tawney’s lovely ‘Oggie Man,’ a lamentation on the leaving of a lover and the passing of a Cornish-pastie seller. (Yes, it can be done!).
The life-blood of Victorian and Edwardian parlour songs was sentimentality of the most tear-inducing kind – the kind that needs careful handling when gathered together in quantity. The songs have been finely sifted by Jon and the Remnant Kings and whilst still echoing the time, there is no drift towards the mushy or the cloying. In this wedding of starch-stiffened songs and earthy ballads, a sob-fest is skilfully avoided.
Bob Langstaff.
hudsonrecords.co.uk
