Jim Moray
Album: Sweet England 10th Anniversary Edition
Label: NIAG
Tracks: 16
Website: http://www.jimmoray.co.uk

Special anniversary editions is a growing idea amongst musicians and are something I am personally for, they act as a celebration, especially if it is music that is still strong after the original release. In the case of Jim Moray's 'Sweet England' not only did he re-release one of his most popular and famous albums but went through and added a bonus track and some live tracks.

This new release uses the same cover but this time as a hologram! This is a particularly nice touch as it implies more thought was added to the release rather than just casually sending the same thing out again. This is the same with the bonus and live tracks that have been added. This makes it a worthy edition for those who may have the original release and also a great album for those who don't.

The music itself is classic Moray, 'Lord Bateman', 'Sweet England' and 'Longing for Lucy' all of course being some of his most recognised classics. For the first half of the album though, not much is really different to the first release, which of course makes sense.

The bonus track is reimaging of 'Early One Morning' and updates the track a little to fit in with this more recent style of playing, adding in a lot more background sounds to create a different, even more mystical ambience that the first version.

As the final cherry on top of it all we get five live tracks from a 2004 concert in Brum. It gives us a better idea of how Jim Moray is live, although having seen him myself even this does not come close to the experience.

What is interesting is all of the live tracks are tunes from the album, on the exception of 'Poverty Knock' which is actually from his later, 2010 release 'A Beginner's Guide'. I would be curious to know why they added a track that wasn't from this album.

As far as re-releases go this is defiantly a hit and has brought lots of exciting new content to listeners, and of course it is a celebration of a fine piece of folk.

Paul Rawcliffe