Reviews
Artist:Three Idle Women Album: All Hands Together
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: https://www.threeidlewomen.com/
Regular readers will note that I have occasionally mentioned that a lot of really good albums are full of people, places and history lessons, well that's three boxes ticked for Three Idle Women's debut album and bonus points awarded for including modern history as well, if you can still count the 1960s as modern history.
Jane Rouse, Charlie Henry and Steph Pirrie came together as Three Idle Women, back in 2013 united by a love of music, harmony singing and a love of canals and canal culture, mainly centred on the Oxford canal, but stretching along the Grand Union and the Thames as well.
The name Three Idle Women comes from the IW designation of women assigned to the Inland Waterways rather than the land army during WW2 to which the canal side community applied the term Idle Women as initially there was a lot of time spent standing around observing a skill. However just like the Bevan Boys, the women that worked the Inland Waterways have been airbrushed from most of the stories of the period.
Almost since their creation, the inland waterways developed their own cultures, this spread into art and song as well as lifestyle, maintaining a link to the previous generations, whilst being gently updated, through the move from horsedrawn, to horse power and ultimately after a period of near closure and obliteration, into the primarily leisure world.
All of the key periods are covered through the songs, often with a twist, "Roses & Castles", which I thought was going to be about the famous art style, but turned out to be a political dissertation in song about the role Jack & Rose Skinner played in saving the canal by convincing Barbera Castle that they were still viable.
There is a more than heavy nod to the new generation of canal boat dwellers, a significant number of which seem to be musicians and their families, as well as showing that it still isn't an easy life if you want to make a living from actually working boats, rather than servicing the tourist trade and/or maintaining the houseboats, be they narrow or wide beam.
"All Hands Together" isn't a misty eyed view of the canals, Three Idle Women are passionate about the waterways, warts and all, accidents, sinking the dangers of carbon monoxide in the boats and the balance of being in the open air on a bright summer's day listening to birdsong.
When I listed the three tick boxes at the start of this review, I deliberately left out one extra box, arguably the most important, does it entertain? Tick, A+.
Neil King
| Previous | Next |
|---|---|
| Beans On Toast: Wild Goose Chasers | Mike Reinstein: The Birds Don’t Sing Around Here |
Recent Reviews
- sundayclub:sundayclub
- The Lost Notes:Live At Symphony Hall
- Jon Loomes:Dust In The Sun
- Emma Jane:Lost At Last
- Celine Cairo:Panacea
- The Glass Hours:Chapel Glass
- Sailing Stones:Slow Magic
- Paul Mckenna Band:Uncovered - Live In Germany 2012
- Martin Carthy:Along The Road Forever: Live At The BBC 1965-2022
- Grasta:Golden Light
Turbulent Waters
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Corsair is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.