I see a lot of fiddle players these days and Eliza is certainly a good one. The gig was a slightly strange affair being based on work songs and allegedly arising out of research done by some numpty at Loughborough Uni (where the gig was staged) who researched old British work songs. It was preceded by a dire talk by said numpty which consited mainly of him pointing out that singing was mentioned in various old plays and poems.
I am not sure Eliza bought into the concept either as there wasn't much of a difference between her songs and the work songs she was supposed to play for part of the gig. Nor were any of the songs stuff you would sing at work as far as I could see. A very fine song was a Manx gaeliccy song about washing a child but I think that is about mothering and not employment. Her accompianist was Saul Rose who played a range of accordians, all of which seemed to be the same make and had a beautiful full and pure sound.
They started with some traditional tunes and then a song called 'The Americans stole my love' or something very similar which Mal said was mostly the same as 'On top of old smoky' . There was a couple of songs involving fish, one a Northern Irish one and the other from Northumberland which had a haunting quality and made an impact.
Near the end they did the more uptempo song "Country Life"? and did an encore of another traditional song featuring a miller I think.
The gig was a bit short at an hour but Eliza can play a jig with the best of them and has a great singing voice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment