fRoots July 2006
Reviews
THE BOAT BAND
A Trip to the Lakes
Harbourtown HARCD047

It's several years now since Boat Band mastermind Greg Stephens opined that what English music needed was a dash of the spirit offered by the Anglo- Cajun bands, like his own, then riding the wave of popularity. On this album the Boat Band have done just that, setting aside their Cajun leanings and attacking the old dance repertoire of Cumberland, Westmorland and North Lancashire. This, however, is no new departure for Stephens, whose Beggar Boy of the North LP blazed the trail for Northwest musicians nearly 20 years ago.
   You'll find slicker groups around in this age of youthful virtuosity, and some listeners will find the Boat Band rough and ready, but they play with a refreshing honesty that conjures up the spirit of proper traditional musicians far more convincingly that many of their peers. Not for them the voguish tendency of syncopating everything to death, or getting bogged down in sulky jazz chords. Melodeons, fiddle, guitar and tenor banjo play with the kind of straight-ahead drive that dancers would appreciate, and the rasping, tapping and thudding of possibly home-made percussion adds greatly to the rhythm. The range of textures achhieved by different combinations of these instruments is impressive; particularly striking are several stripped-down and hypnotic arrangements featuring banjo and guitar.
   The tunes themselves are terrific: jigs, hornpipes, reels and polkas, skirling melodies as rugged as the Cumbrian hills, with many a twist and turn. Despite occasional glances over the Scots border and the Irish Sea, this is as far removed from "Celtic" music as it is from southern English polka-dom. There are ssome fine waltzes too, and two songs which are perhaps less compelling than the instrumentals. All this, plus a well-researched, informative and entertaining essay on 19th century Cumberland fiddler William Irwin--a source for several of the tunes--makes for a very enjoyable collection.
www.harbourtownrecords.com
Brian Peters