Eliza Carthy – ‘Rough Music’

I’m a little bit in love with Eliza Carthy. Then again, so is just about everyone interested in English folk music, it seems. She’s gone from the wunderkind of the folk scene in the early ‘90s, to being the genre’s great white hope to break through to the mainstream (the usual story: bit of mainstream interest, overly commercial-sounding album which flops, then back to the roots), to her position nowadays as a universally respected scene survivor who continues to make great music. (There may be another chapter too, as she’s gained a new lease of life in the eyes of the mainstream again due to her albums of self-penned songs.)

All this is partly down to her lineage – her father is Martin Carthy, probably the most important figure in English folk music over the last fifty years; her mother is Norma Waterson, part of the Waterson family, a seminal group who reinvigorated the a cappella singing tradition in the early ‘60s ‘folk revival’. But focussing on her family downplays Eliza’s own achievements. She was a great fiddle player when she first started making records at the age of 16, and since then she’s just got better and better. She doesn’t get a great deal of praise for her singing, but her voice has developed a wonderful, rich timbre, with a hint of her Yorkshire accent still there, and she can be a very expressive singer too, as this album demonstrates.

The family also perform together as Waterson:Carthy, and are as great as their pedigree would suggest!

Eliza’s made plenty of noteworthy albums – her Mercury Prize-nominated double album ‘Red Rice’ is often mentioned – but 2005’s ‘Rough Music’ is one which is really worth exploring. The album is credited to Eliza Carthy & the Ratcatchers, a backing band made up of Ben Ivitsky, John Spiers and Jon Boden. The last two have of course found plenty of fame since then, both as a duo and part of ‘folk big band’ Bellowhead.

While Eliza is the star of the show, it’s definitely a group album, as the first track shows. ‘Turpin Hero’ slowly wends its way into your ears, as the fiddles overlap and gradually unwind. While Eliza sings the track fairly ‘straight’, the sinuous music reveals itself gradually over the course of the track. It’s one heck of an opening song, precisely because it doesn’t arrive with a bang. It’s clever and intricate without being flashy.

The album features a mix of other traditional songs like this, instrumental sets combining various jigs and hornpipes, an a cappella track, a Billy Bragg cover and a song written by Eliza. The self-penned song is the touching ‘Mohair’, a tribute to Eliza’s aunt Lal Waterson. I’m usually a bit prejudiced against folk singers inserting their own songs into albums of ‘trad. arr.’ songs, but ‘Mohair’ doesn’t seem out of place at all, despite its highly personal nature. Indeed, as mentioned above, Eliza is proving herself to be a fine songwriter, as her last two albums (‘Dreams of Breathing Underwater’ and ‘Mercury’) have shown.

Other highlights on the album include the gruesome ‘The Unfortunate Lass’, about a girl dying of syphilis (“My poor head is aching/My sad heart is breaking/My body’s salivating”). In total contrast is the vocal song, ‘The Maid on the Shore’. Here, it is the woman who ends up taking advantage of men, in a rather more comical fashion.

The instrumental sets are as high-energy and intricate as you’d expect from such talented musicians. The whole album reeks of quality, but with none of the worthiness that seems to accompany certain folk musicians. There’s always an emotional connection to the music, whether that’s the fun inherent in dance tunes, or singing a ballad song like ‘The Gallant Hussar’ as a way of really telling a story.

Since this album, Spiers and Boden have gone on to greater things, and Eliza’s career has taken yet another turn as she continues to play with and re-invent the folk tradition in a balance that very few can manage (as well as her albums of original songs, she’s recorded a duet album with her mother, ‘Gift’). It’s difficult to guess where exactly she’ll go next, and while wherever it may be is bound to be interesting, I for one would be very pleased if she eventually returned to the style of this album. Music like this – with an obvious deep understanding of the folk tradition, played brilliantly, but re-jigged slightly (pardon the pun) and without any sense of ‘worthiness’ – is hard to come by. Why isn’t more modern English folk music like this?