Peter Bellamy
Album: Won't You Go My Way
Label: Talking Elephant
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.talkingelephant.co.uk

Another piece in the jigsaw of the career of the late maverick folk revivalist Peter Bellamy has been exhumed from the vaults at last, the original Argo-label LP having been deleted for well over three decades now and never previously reissued on CD. It's a classic recording made at the Folk Studio, Norwich, on June 22, 1971 before an invited audience (who clearly know the ropes, for they join in the choruses enthusiastically in true folk-club fashion!).

The performances are chock full of Peter's distinctive personality, eccentric quirks and all (I might say butter and cheese and all, after the first item on the menu!). He's in fine voice on a typically eclectic set mostly consisting of traditional songs (two with concertina backing and the remainder sung unaccompanied) but as a special point of interest also including the first two songs he wrote ("without the help of Rudyard Kipling", as he delicately puts it!), Above The Hill and the mighty (if mildly thorny) Testimonial. Peter always makes a point of crediting his sources, and the set naturally contains a good number of songs from the singing of the Copper Family, one of his prime enthusiasms, alongside material from the repertoires of Norfolk singers Sam Larner and Peter Bullen, one song from Paddy Tunney, a Cyril Tawney original (Monday Morning) and even the Thomas Arne chestnut Sweet Nightingale.

The latter is one of three items on which Peter is joined by Louis Killen, who delivers some superb harmonies (and a priceless instance of "bleating Bellamy" mimicry during their rendition of Spencer The Rover!). When the two singers join forces on a trenchant, storm-tossed Young-Tradition-style medley of three sea-shanties midway through the disc, the effect is electrifying. As is the whole 46-minute set, which usefully retains all of Peter's essential, informative (if whimsical) and nicely opinionated song-introductions.

Twice during the course of the recording Peter gives the audience a breather from the sound of his voice songs by picking up the tin whistle, to play a tune and an air with real feeling, and his lengthy, percipient preamble to Black Is The Colour is almost worth the price of admission alone. "Muggins bought it" - and so will anyone who cares about the folk revival buy this well-appointed reissue, containing as it does some grand performances, in the context of which any slightly rough'n'ready quality in the recording matters not.

David Kidman