Peter Bellamy
Album: Barrack Room Ballads
Label: Fellside
Tracks: 24
Website: http://www.fellside.com

Here's another key reissue: one that will definitely be eagerly received by admirers of the iconic Peter Bellamy, sure, but one that will also inspire the more recent converts to the man's art. It brings us the core (I'd say the very kernel) of one of the cornerstones of Peter's many-faceted repertoire, that of his series of sharply-observed responses to (in the shape of brilliant musical settings of) the writings of the much-misunderstood Rudyard Kipling. His theory, that Kipling was influenced by English folksongs, was initially illustrated by his settings of Puck Of Pook's Hill, then in 1976 he turned his attention to the Barrack Room Ballads. The resulting themed LP, containing a dozen of these settings, was issued on Green Linnet in the States and under licence by Free Reed in the UK, and now Fellside, having acquired the rights to these recordings, have reissued the LP in its entirety for the first time since its original appearance.

Free Reed's anniversary collection The Ballads Of Peter Bellamy contained several of the same titles, but in entirely different recordings, so the reappearance of the original LP, in its original form, as disc 1 of this Fellside two-for-the-price-of-one set, is to be heartily welcomed in its own right. Peter's strident, confident, in-character delivery of these pieces is absolutely brilliant, and as definitive as it is uniquely idiosyncratic; he's accompanied on the album session by Chris Birch and Tony Hall.

But there's much more to celebrate here, for the claim of this Fellside set is to bring together in one place (and for the first time) Peter's various Barrack Room Ballads recordings. To that end, then, disc two "mops up" with recordings of the remaining eight BRBs that Peter was to set, plus his settings of the three other Kipling songs not included in either of the BRB books (Private Ortheris' Song, Follow Me 'Ome and Cholera Camp).

Perhaps confusingly, however, the latter two mentioned, plus Ford O' Kabul River, are here represented by recordings that are already available on Fellside's Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Kipling And The Tradition set (which amongst other delights combined the Keep On Kipling and Songs An' Rummy Conjurin' Tricks albums). This means that only nine of this disc's twelve selections are actually drawn from the privately-issued cassette of the 1990 production Soldiers Three, on which Peter was accompanied by Jamie O'Dwyer and a chorus of Keith Marsden, Steve Tilston and Nigel Schofield. That double-LP-cassette also contained new versions of the earlier, already-released settings, which however are not included here - with the exception of Billy 'Awkins, which features Peter in duet with Keith Marsden. I'd guess that Bellamy completists will be cherishing a hope that these few remaining tracks will see light of day on CD in due course… but for the meantime (and for the majority of enthusiasts) this handsome Fellside reissue will do the trick nicely, and can be counted one of the year's essential purchases.

David Kidman