A Festive Blog about a Festive Masterpiece!
Picture the scene, if you will, gentle reader. It is the first Sunday in November 2011 and I am in the kitchen at chez Marsh, preparing the Sunday roast- Beef, if memory serves, with Roast Potatoes, an array of veg and, of course Yorkshire (and this becomes a salient point later) puddings. As I am cooking (well, not me myself, I wouldn't fit in the oven) my mind turns to my end of year Top 10 albums. What would be my album of the year? There had been some strong albums out, Noah and The Whale's "Last Night on Earth", Ron Sexsmith "Long Player, Late Bloomer" and the current market leader "Rolling Blackouts" by the Go! Team, which was very much a return to form after their disappointing second outing, "Proof of Youth". As strong as all these albums were though, one did wonder whether there was time for a late release to come hurtling down the track in a Christine Ohuruogu stylee and pip everyone on the line.
Well possibly, but if there was, it certainly wasn't going to be the album playing in the background as I honey glazed the parsnips, which was "While Mortals Sleep" by Kate Rusby. Some background here will probably be useful. Rusby is an English (This again becomes pertinent later on) Folk Singer from Barnsley in Yorkshire. She had been making albums since 1997 and her second album, Sleepless (1999) was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Now I've had a fondness for Folk Music since I left University but it was more of the upbeat, protest style folk variety favoured by Oysterband rather than what I perceived to be the more reflective, ballads about girls who died style played by young Kate. I owned the Sleepless album. (I was going through a "Let's buy the albums that have been nominated for a Mercury Prize " phase and am STILL regretting the £10 wasted on Roni Size and Reprasent) but hadn't been tempted back for anymore.
That said, I did see Kate live at the Big Session festival in 2010 when she was the Saturday night headliner. I freely admit that having been on the Ale all day, I was virtually marinated by that point but I thought that Kate was superb. The music was excellent but moreover Kate came across as a witty, entertaining and vibrant performer between the songs. I made a mental note to check out more of her albums and then, of course, promptly forgot until the good wife encountered a version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" by Kate on Radio 2.
It transpired that in 2008 Kate made an album of Christmas Songs, "Sweet Bells". I fully appreciate that, at this point, a number of you will have run screaming from the room for Christmas Music is a much looked down upon genre. To be honest, much of this is for good reason as too many Christmas songs are either overplayed ("Last Christmas", "Do They know it's Christmas"), drenched with schmaltz and saccharine ("All I want for Christmas is you", anything featuring the words "Cliff" and "Richard") or are unspeakable ("There's no one quite like Grandma"). As for Christmas albums, these tend to be the last refuge of the scoundrel (M.Buble, R.Stewart) and are the sort of thing you buy for the Mother-in-law online using your other half's credit card details.
However..............there are two things to be said here. Firstly in recent years, a number of indie popstrels have come onto the horizon bedecked with tinsel and mistletoe, looking to bring some credibility to the Yuletide Album. Emmy The Great (Self given name rather value judgement) and Tim Wheeler (He of Ash) made a very decent fist of things with their Spectoresque (In the Musical sense, I would hasten to add) "This is Christmas" whilst albums by Smith and Burrows (Sounds like a firm of solicitors, isn't) and Tracy Thorn sound more wintry than festive but are fine records nonetheless.
Secondly, Kate's Sweet Bells album was a different kettle of fish to anything described above as it was, more or less, an album not of Christmas songs but of Christmas Carols. More specifically it was an album made up of carols sung in South Yorkshire, where there is a strong tradition of community carol singing (and I would stress that this is singing them yourself rather than having them sung at you by groups of high pitched choirboys wearing silly robes and ruffs!). Kate grew up with these songs and I imagine wanted to bring them to a wider audience. Glancing at the track list some may appear familiar ("The afore mentioned "Hark the Herald", two versions of "While Shepherds Watched"), the versions are not. "Hark the Herald" in its traditional form is robust and loud, this is stripped down, thoughtful and quite beautiful. Simialrly there was a song I had never heard before called "Candlemass Eve" which again was sparse and lovely. I didn't think that the rest of the album was up to the same standard (It would have been extraordinary if it had been) but overall, it was a good listen. The wife loved it and it became a regular guest at the Marsh Christmas table.
This being the case when I heard that Kate was releasing a second album of Christmas Carols, I decided to bag a copy when I was in Basingstoke Town Centre (Note to anyone reading 20 years from hence, in those days Town Centres contained SHOPS) and put it on whilst I was a -cooking that Sunday Roast. And as I implied earlier, as the early tracks filled the air, I was distinctly unimpressed as it appeared to be a pale retread of the original. First up was "Cranbrook", which was yet another version of "While Shepherds Watched" sung to the tune of "On Ilkley Moor Bar Tat". Then came "Home", which was a Kate Rusby original that didn't grab me on first listen. Next was "Kris Kingle" which smacked of false jollity. Then came "O Little Town of Bethlehem" which was clearly this albums "Hark The Herald"................
And it was (and is) ABSOLUTELY STUNNING.
I kid you not, unprompted I stopped peeling the parsnips and stood, knife in one hand, parsnip in the other, staring at the CD player, gobsmacked. I had heard this carol, hundreds, probably thousands of times. In churches, in the streets, on TV, in the middle of nowhere. How on earth had she managed to make a version that sounded like you were hearing it the first time? How do you take something so familiar and make it sound new?
I pressed stop, finished dinner preparations (The family and my stomach wouldn't have thanked me otherwise) and then sat down, pressed play and listened to the album from the start, giving it my full attention. What unfolded was, by some distance, the best album that I had heard that year and is quite possibly the best album that I have heard this century (It's certainly the best English album).
What makes it so special, I hear you say? At this point I need to disclose two facts about myself, which are oddly interlinked. Firstly I love Christmas. As a Christian, I clearly believe the Christmas story and it's therefore a time that means a lot personally. I love the sense of celebration, the excited kids, the parties, the heightened sense of community. At the age of 49, I am very fortunate in that I still think Christmas retains a sense of wonder and magic, I love the lights, the sense of expectation, the feeling that there is something in the air, that you can't touch. I know that there's loads of people who moan about the commercialisation of Christmas but, frankly, off you pop, lads, you can see past all that if you try.
Now, clearly I love music (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this stuff) and therefore, it's unsurprising that I love Christmas Carols. OK I admit there's some stinkers (usually anything written for Children "Away in a Manger", "See Him Lying in a Bed of Straw" and another one we'll come back to in a minute) but nothing makes me feel like Christmas like a carol, particularly if it's either played by a brassband (Again, more later) or played in a country church or in the middle of nowhere....
And that's the second thing to mention. I was born on the outskirts of a Kentish Town but I am at heart and will always be a country boy! I love the English Countryside. Both my parents were farm workers and loved the land, I spent most of formative years in the countryside, usually walking or cycling through it and during my teenage years, I went to a country church. The highlights of my year were the annual Carols by Candlelight service and the carol singing we did for charity around the villages and hamlets (Or in English, one house in the middle of nowhere). To me that was Christmas, singing carols out in the English Countryside, under a starlit sky, with no one around for miles (with the exception of a few sheep).
Then. of course, life takes over. You move to a different place, you acquire responsibilities, Christmas becomes a time of busyness, of kids school plays, of combining Christmas preparations with jobs that refuse to get any less busy, of the tours of the relatives and so on. Don't get me wrong, I still love it but part of me longed for the peace and stillness, of standing there in the middle of nowhere in the English Countryside, hearing a beautifully sung carol under a starlit sky.
And sitting there in the kitchen, with the smell of honey glazed parsnips and roast beef filling the air, I realised that that was what Kate Rusby had given me back. Listening to "Little Town of Bethlehem", "Home" (In my view Rusbys greatest original song), "Holmfirth Anthem" "First Tree in the Greenwood" "The Wren" "Diadem", I was back there in the Heart of The English Countryside, overwhelmed by this beautiful, stately music. Even the more upbeat numbers had that wonderful timeless, pure festive feel "Cranbrook" "Joy to the World" , "Seven Good Joys" She had captured that feeling for me again with these songs from her South Yorkshire upbringing, for they were the same as the ones from my East Kentish upbringing, just arranged differently, same England, same Christmas.
How had she done it? Well first and foremost, you have her voice. Kate Rusby has an amazing singing voice, pure and clear. She could stop traffic with it and it is so well suited to these songs. Secondly the arrangements, she handles these songs straight, there is no hint of irony or cheese (nor thank goodness, choirs of small children, there's a time and place for them but it isn't here!) or over over reverence or bombast or over complication. Most of the songs are simply arranged, with reasonably limited arrangements, this lets the songs and Kate Rusby's voice weave their magic. As said, these songs are mostly very old and familiar but everything sounds so fresh.
And then there's the Brass band! "Now, hang on a minute", I hear you say, "I thought you said there was no bombast. I've heard Brass Bands, they are as subtle of a flying mallet (Timmy or otherwise)". Normally I would agree with you, I love Brass Bands but they are usually used to drive the song, they are forceful and they are at the front of the arrangement because they are LOUD (I once heard one indoors, my ears were ringing for a week). But here, the Brass is wonderfully subtle. Take "Little Town" for instance, it fades in gently, reinforces the song and then plays the song out but not in a way that detracts from the simplicity and beauty of proceedings. And, of course, it adds to that wonderful, pure Christmas feeling. It's a trick that's repeated throughout the album.
Part of me would like to conclude this review right now. However that would be being dishonest. There is one song on this album, that to me takes the record from "Great" to "Masterpiece" and that is Track 8 "Rocking Carol". "I don't know that one", I hear you say. Well I think you do because it's also called "Little Jesus, Sweetly Sleep". At which point I imagine your reaction is to splutter whatever beverage you are drinking all over the table/laptop/dog nearby and to tell me to SOD OFF (or whatever your expletive of choice is). And until I heard Kate's version is I would have agreed you. From the moment I first heard "Little Jesus Sweetly Sleep (Or LJSS)" and I was 7, I thought it was ABSOLUTELY UNSPEAKABLE. It was sappy, it was saccharine soaked, it made your teeth rot as you sang it. As I grew older I kept encountering Sunday School Leaders and Church Ministers who thought it was a good idea to have a collection of afore mentioned Small Children to sing it in Nativity Services. This was always a BAD idea for Two Reasons: 1. It was CRAP 2. Said Small Children would inevitably transform themselves into a horde of would be Freddie Mercury's as soon as they reached the chorus of "We will Rock You".
The ghastly thing was therefore beyond redemption and when "Rocking Carol" commenced and when I realised with, frankly, horror that Kate had chosen to foist LJSS on an unsuspecting public I reached for the CD player intending at best to press "Forward" or at worst to eject the album and turn it into a frisbee.
1 minute later, I had tears running down my face! As I say, I type this through gritted teeth (if that's physically possible). I am not the sort of person moved to tears by music or film (unless it's with laughter and that certainly wasn't the case here) but, I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself, it was completely involuntary. And why? Part of me can't explain but I think it was something to do with the fact that she had taken such frankly unpromising material but had slowed it right down, added brass that was so sad and full of longing and transformed it into a thing of true beauty (and if that sounds cliched I don't care). It was, and is, a truly remarkable song and one of the loveliest things I have ever heard.
So, when the 1st November clicks round each year, it always puts a spring in my step now because that's when I'm allowed to play "While Mortals Sleep" without someone saying "Turn it off, it's too early". In one sense, I would disagree with that because music this lovely and this atmospheric shouldn't be restricted to any one time of year but on the other hand, I can see their point, because to me now, this album is such an essential part of Christmas because it conjures up what Christmas is all about to me. A truly amazing and beautiful album.
