Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke

Subject: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:22 AM

Sadly I missed the Boat Band performing at the Extravaganza in Failsworth last Sunday, but listening to the recordings of this band shows their mastery of an eclectic repertory of Cajun, Cheshire, Cornish and Cumbrian influences (and that's just the letter 'C'!).

Anyway the latest issue of eds (the magazine of the english folk dance and song society) has a review of the CD A Trip to the Lakes of traditional Cumbrian tunes. This was recorded by the Boat Band for the 1st Duddon Valley Folk Festival 2001, held to cheer everyone up in those dark days when foot-and-mouth disease raged.

To quote from the review by Felicity Greenland: "I love this album for its wacky flashes...and great under-and-over percussion which...emanates palpably from a deep community heart with a tipsy love for its music that is at once both wise old chuckle and youthful glee.

I've listened to the CD too and found that the tunes are a lively and jolly treatment of numbers from an authentic and rich Cumbrian tradition. As the review mentions, some of vigour this tradition as it existed in the 1950's can be heard on the recent Veteran CD Pass The Jug Around, and it is lovely to hear some of the tunes and songs from those recordings given new life by the Boat Band. Greg Stephens has dedicated the CD to the memory of "the heroic fiddlers of the past" especially William Irwin of Langdale, as well as Henry Stables, Matthew Betham and William Docker.

The Boat Band are definitely not spurious performers; they play real music with skill and great good humour. As Felicity Greenland says of the Lakeland CD "It has a nutty jollity that will make children dance....

The Boat Band may be based in inland Stoke, but they turn up in some unlikely places playing music for enjoyment. For me this CD best shows their roots in a vigourous but not very well known tradition - that of Cumbria.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 06:55 PM

i seen the some of the boat band [greg and kate], they came to my flok club last year, and it was really nice.
and they are really good,

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 05:28 PM

Thankk you for those kind comments. yes, I do live in Stoke now. I have spent a lifetime studying north-west English music, my family are all Cumbrian ( we are Millom people), but like a lot of weat Cumbrians we are Cornish. So I love what we have here in Cumberland. but I also stand back a little bit when I am researching, because I know I am Cornish really,not hardcore Cumbrian. I live in stoke, now, but the Duddon valley is where I really am.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: GUEST,Proud Cumbrian zog etc
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 09:47 AM

These arn't real Cumbrians they false Cumbrians talking the bread out of the mouths of brave heroic genuine Cumbrian........ (on and on for forty posts)

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: GUEST,Sir jOhn
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:06 PM

Proud Cumbrian Zog - [Wahts a Zog anyway?
is sound like bloody space alien man]

why don;t you just get lost and stop making troble, you obviusly are rubbish person, wihth nothing better to do, arsehole.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 09:02 PM

you are rubissh person tyrtying to make trouble, and you rtyied alkready on kurdish threads, and it dident work, so just get lost.john

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From:
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 10:45 AM

I despute you. Real cornishmen do not wear kilts and play skittles and guitar they are fooling you with theer tricky ways

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: GUEST,john
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 08:07 PM

oh.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:13 AM

Proud Cumbrian zog: sod off back to Hull, I know very well you are Flamenco Ted. Well, there goes my chance of publishing this thread as part of the publicity for "Trip to the Lakes", a remarkable record of genuine Cumbrian music, untainted by lickspittle English influence. But might I just take this opportunity of recommending that Mudcatters of purchasing this lovely CD.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:21 AM

I should also correct a typo in my post of March 13, which might make it a bit incomprehensible. In referring to "weat Cumbrians", I meant to write "west Cumbrians". The discovery of big iron deposits in west Cumbria, the newly improved methods of making iron and steel, the huge demands for the stuff, and the concentration of ore-mining skills in Corwall: all these combined to encourage a huge influx of Cornigh immigration into west Cumberland, and specifically to the creation of what was effectively a Cornish town,culturally and architecturally: Millom.
   That's how my ancestors ended up in Cumberland, in Millom, Whitehaven and Workington.

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:35 AM

Not me Greg. I just want a quiet life but can't seem to get one!

Subject: RE: Review: Cumbrian musicians in Stoke
From: Oaklet
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 07:02 AM

It's OK, Ted - it was also me as well, according to naughty people from yesterday....