STEVE TURNER
A Host Of Furious Fancies
‘The Tradition Bearers’ is both a project and independent record label whose key aim is to highlight the work of the current generation of traditional singers and musicians, arguing that today’s singers are just as vital to the “living tradition” as legendary figures from the past. Whilst the core of their work has focused upon Scotland, music from Ireland and England has also begun to feature, as exemplified by the work of Steve Turner.
A one-time member of Canny Fettle, a traditional folk group from the north-east of England during the 1970’s, Steve has had a long and illustrious career, establishing himself in the 1980s as one of the most innovative and sought-after English-concertina players in the country. He has been recognized as one of those artists who has been the backbone of the British folk scene, and, following a lengthy time away, he made a welcome return to clubs and festivals in 2004. 2008 saw him release an album which featured the likes of Martin Carthy, Nancy Kerr and Miranda Sykes. Further releases have followed, and this latest one, Host of Furious Fancies, is his tenth.
He is, however, not just a one-trick pony. In addition to his exemplary concertina playing, he is also blessed with a tremendous voice, which he uses to great effect over the 11 diverse tracks presented here. Drawing from a range of sources, encompassing Dorset, Hampshire & Somerset, Australia, Canada, Ireland and the USA, from a variety of traditions including Gypsies and Travellers, there is even place for a Bob Dylan Cover.
In terms of its sonic presentation, the album is mainly stripped-back, allowing his voice full- rein to convey the lyrics in a clear and powerful way, and to garner every last ounce of emotion where appropriate. In addition to his concertina, however, Steve is joined on a track or two by Rob van Sante on guitar, baritone guitar, bass guitar and Chris Parkinson on keyboards.
The album opens with ‘Erin’s Green Shore’, a song from a collection of previously unpublished songs from the Gypsies and Travellers’ community collated by Nick Dow, and was collected in 1970 from the repertoire of Gypsy George Finney. Dow, along with Steve Gardham, also collated some lesser known songs from Dorset, Hants and Somerset from the Hammond and Gardiner archive, and the following track, the familiar ‘Adieu My Lovely Nancy’, is a 1905 version of the song from Dorsetshire farm labourer Joseph Elliot.
Harry Robertson’s ‘North Sea Tug’ is the first non-trad offering, followed by ‘The Navigator’s Song’, a ‘trad.arr’ song taken from ‘The Dave and Toni Arthur Song Book’, which tells of the navigators, or ‘navvies’, who constructed the canal systems in the 18th century and the railways in the 19th. Steve has spent some 40 years working on ‘The Blooming Bright Star of Belle Isle’, a broken- token song originating from Newfoundland. The version presented here, replete with piano, sees him changing the tune and revamping the words, hence the ‘trad.arr Turner’ credit.
A rousing version of the well-known ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ follows. Again taken from Hammond & Gardiner, this was collected in 1907 from one of Steve’s musical heroines, Marina Russell, and presumably, Bob Dylan is another influence, as Love Minus Zero/No Limit is given the trademark Turner treatment. Steve learned the authentic and tragic story ‘Mr Ineas’, written by Gordon Bok, from his late friend, and legend of the New England folk scene, John Roberts.
The final trio of tracks sees Steve initially travel even further afield, this time to Australia, with ‘The Outside Track’. The lyrics here are a poem, written in1896 by bush poet Henry Lawson, telling of the hardships of rural life in Australia at the time, and put to music in 1982 by Gerry Hallom, an Australian folk singer exiled in England. Penultimate song, ‘The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow’, is described as an intriguing song found in the North of Ireland and also sung by Scottish travelers, with this version of the love song coming from the singing of gypsy Bartley Wilson. The album closes with ‘Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song’, a 16th Century song recently heard by Steve at Cheltenham Folk Club, with a 1659 tune from a Drexel manuscript, now in New York public library, with the intriguing speculation that Shakespeare may have had a hand in the song’s composition.
With A Host of Furious Fancies, Steve Turner has not only breathed new life into traditional songs, but has also proved that complex arrangements and recording techniques are not a prerequisite, and that a simpler approach can indeed lead to more “honest recordings” of traditional music.
A Host Of Furious Fancies