High hills, valleys, fields, stiles, white dogs, black dogs, yellow dogs, lame dogs, limping dogs, poachers, roaring gales, getting wet and endeavouring to procure lodgings for oneself with little more than eighteen pence. Not the kind of imagery apt to be thrown up by either Lily Allen or Little Boots admittedly (with the exception of poaching, perhaps) but in the context of James Yorkston, not entirely unpredictable, pretty much because Yorkston has been roaring the gospel, rolling the harr and moving up country ever since he first tackled a 900 metre hike up Beinn a’ Chleibh with little more than pipe and a crate of Theakstons Old Peculier for company back in 2000, the same year he was picked up by John Peel, passed onto John Martyn and then routinely seconded to Beth Orton, the Tindersticks and Lambchop for a series of support slots. And though Yorkston has since become a force in folk in his own right (his sophomore album peaking at #155 in the UK Charts) this snoozy collection of folk-songs as old and as wizened as Methuselah and culled from as far afield as Rufford Park and Galacia in Spain, was originally conceived as an album for Fence Records in the late 1990s, whose intention it was to foist out on unsuspecting golfers in the label’s St Andrews hometown. And though Yorkston and his saucy brigand of folk duellers can regularly be found on EPs (and the 19th tee) rustling up tracks of this nature, ‘Folk Songs’ is the first time he’s tackled these particular tunes, and the first time he’s worked with James Green and the ‘Big Eyes Family Players’ – an ad hoc collection of fans and musicians he’s somehow picked up along the way. And it’s pretty much what you’d expect. May, the month of Miracles feature prominently, as do bonny lasses, youths, gamekeepers and farmer’s daughters. And a lot of humping besides. Girls are not girls but maidens (naturally) and they arrive packing pistols and deliberately antagonise both soldier and landlord alike.
Sailors, sighs, turning tides and partings of such sweet sorrow that you could preserve cured meats with the tears leaked into your hanky (‘Thorneymoor Woods’, ‘Little Musgrave’ and the kinky highwayman’s tale ‘Sovay’ being worthy of particular mention).
Can you imagine either Alex Turner or Miles Kane regaling you with tales of the ‘throstle cock’ and ‘Lord Barnard’s horn’? You can? Then grab a copy.