Folk CD of the month - Norma Waterson & Eliza Carthy with the Gift Band: Anchor review

The Guardian 80

(Topic Records)

In folk, there are people you always expect to be there, sowing the seeds, ploughing the fields, releasing music as if it was as rooted in their bones as the turning of the seasons. The Waterson-Carthys are one of these tribes – and indeed Eliza Carthy and Marry Waterson have had a busy few years – but matriarch Norma has been understandably quiet, since serious illness left her in a coma in 2010. After it, she had to teach herself how to walk and talk again, in her 70s, which makes the release of this record even more extraordinary.

Recorded as live in a chapel in the family’s home town, Yorkshire’s Robin Hood’s Bay, and with a full, rousing band, Anchor is as steadfast and timeless as its title implies. Not that it is a record of ancient lore: it is a broadminded, spellbinding and often surprising collection of songs, celebrating the influences on the family and their friends. It begins with Norma singing Tom Waits’ Strange Weather, her voice warm and gently rough, as it dashes through lyrics playfully (“I believe that brandy’s mine”) and with well-worn resignation (“all over the world strangers / Talk only about the weather”). This combination of deep joy and bruised bar-room melancholy sets the tone for this record, making it sing.