Dave Swarbrick
Album: Swarbrick/Swarbrick 2/Smiddyburn
Label: BGO
Tracks: 38
Website: http://www.bgo-records.com
Now here's an essential reissue if ever there was! Two discs, together containing the entire contents of three individual original albums.

First we get the two solo albums released by Swarb on the Transatlantic label in 1976 and 1977 respectively (between his spells with Fairport). These were basically acoustic-based offerings, produced by then-Fairport-drummer Bruce Rowland and featuring instrumental support from Martin Carthy, long-term Fairporters Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg, some companions from Swarb's ceilidh band days (pianist Beryl Marriott, melodeon player Roger Marriott, accordionist Alan Robertson and fiddler Kate Graham) and clarsach specialist Savourna Stevenson. Recordings from various permutations of the above musicians were split more or less evenly between the two releases, with solo performances interspersed with delicious chamber-style fiddle-and-piano or fiddle-and-clarsach duets, classic Carthy-&-Swarb renditions of traditional English tunes and a sprinkling of seriously rousing ceilidh-style dance-medleys. Both albums have been remastered, and sparkle like new.

And by the way, this latest BGO reissue comes with two distinct advantages over the 90s single-disc re-release (on Essential (Sanctuary) of these same two albums: firstly, it restores to currency the pair of tracks that (due to lack of space) had to be omitted from the earlier reissue, and secondly, it sports handsome liner notes including full details of the provenance and sources of the music.

The second half of disc 2 of this BGO release gives us the entire contents of Swarb's fifth solo album, which was released in 1981 under the obscure Logo imprint. Coming after the pair of arguably even more obscure releases for Sonet (Lift The Lid & Listen and The Ceilidh Album), which I've not yet found on CD, Smiddyburn is by way of contrast a defiantly electrified product, infused with the then-still-healthy spirit of traditional rocked-up folk and heavily featuring the awesome axe-work of Richard Thompson, additional guitaristic embellishment from Simon Nicol, the trusty Peggy-Mattacks rhythm team and a guest twinkling of the ivories from Beryl Marriott on one track. The majority of the eight selections are suitably spirited and vibrantly arranged trad dance medleys; these are elegantly topped up with a fulsome mando-trio arrangement (with Messrs Thompson and Pegg) of When The Battle Is Over, and the disc closes (perhaps somewhat bravely, I thought) with a Swarb vocal on Sandy Denny's classic second-album song It Suits Me Well.

The excellence of this BGO release now begs the question of whether the label can be persuaded to complete, or at least continue, this reissue programme - by bringing us those two Sonet albums and solo album number six (Flittin') together on a companion two-disc set?…

David Kidman