A pleasing new release
from Regis offers a variety of popular
songs and dances from the seventeenth
century. Several of these were Broadside
Ballads - an early type of newspaper
consisting of words giving the name
of a well-known tune that they could
be sung to. They were printed during
second half of seventeenth century
and covered a range of then-current
themes from politics and religion
through to love and bawdier subjects.
Available to anyone for a penny, they
were subsequently sung everywhere
from low taverns through to theatres.
There were also several collections
of ballad and dance tunes, such as
Playford's Dancing Master and Durfey's
collections of popular songs - a six-volume
edition of 1698 of over 1000 songs
called Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge
Melancholy.
Playford was England's
first commercial music publisher,
and his Dancing Master was hugely
popular. The majority of the instrumental
works featured on this disc come from
this source (including the famous
tune Newcastle), although the compilation
also includes three Sixteenth century
dances from France that were often
performed at court in England after
the more formal dances had ended.
All the instrumental tracks are very
well played.
The songs range from
the melancholic, such as the very
touching The Three Ravens, a setting
of a popular ballad, and The Broom
of the Cowdenowes through to the upbeat
Tomorrow the Fox will come to Town
and The Jovial Broom Man. The City
Waites give vivid reconstructions
of these songs in their likely settings,
really bringing them to life - for
instance, the background tavern noises
in We be Soldiers Three and animals
sounds in Tomorrow the Fox will come
to Town. Brooms for Old Shoes by Thomas
Ravenscroft - who, although better
known possibly for his church music
and viol consorts, also published
collections of popular songs, including
drinking songs and ballads - also
opens and closes with the noises and
shouts and street sounds of town life
- carts rattling and babies crying
in the background. The cries of vendors
bartering and selling their wares
would have been a major factor of
city life, and not just Ravenscroft
here, but also Durfey incorporates
them into his song, The Traders Medley.
Altogether, this
is an excellent collection of some
interesting and amusing songs and
dances covering a range of themes
from rural versus city life, rural
concerns, love, tobacco, battle of
the sexes, wives so evil they even
torment the devil, food and wine.
The performers are all to be commended
(listen, for example, to the beautifully
performed Lavender's Blue (actually
originally a bawdy broadside ballad),
and to the lovely blending of voices
therein. All the male voices are strong
and robust, very apt for these sort
of songs, and adopt persuasive accents
when necessary, while Lucie Skeaping
is very good at varying her sweet
voice to suit each individual song
- from quite beautiful and refined,
as in The Three Ravens, The Northern
Lasses Lamentation, The Broom of the
Cowdenowes through to quite coarse
and common as in Brooms for old shoes
and The Traders Medley. Engaging songs,
good performances.
Em Marshall
see also review
by Patrick Gary
The City Waites/Lucie Skeaping 
