Maddy Prior & June Tabor - Silly Sisters 1976

PW = purgatory

mp3 @ 128 kb/s

This was a match made in heaven: Maddy Prior, the sweet-voiced singer for Steeleye Span, and June Tabor, a darker-toned solo performer who was already making a significant name for herself on the British folk scene. The collaboration was blessed by the presence of most of that scene's aristocracy, including guitarists Nic Jones and Martin Carthy, bassist Danny Thompson, and mandolinist Andy Irvine. But the album's most transcendent moments come when Prior and Tabor sing together a cappella, as they do at the beginning of the gentle "Seven Joys of Mary" and the more astringent "Burning of Auchindoon," not to mention the hair-raising "Four Loom Weaver." A few of these songs require a couple of listens before they reveal all of their charms, but all of them are worth the effort. [So artistically, if not commercially, successful was this album that Prior and Tabor reunited ten years later to record the equally fine No More to the Dance under the group name Silly Sisters.]

01 - Doffin' Mistress
02 - Burning Of Auchidoon
03 - Lass Of Lock Royal
04 - The Seven Joys Of Mary
05 - My Husband's Got No Courage In Him
06 - Singing The Travels (Symondsbury Mummers)
07 - Silver Whistle
08 - The Grey Funnel Line
09 - Geordie
10 - The Seven Wonders
11 - Four Loom Weaver
12 - The Game Of Cards
13 - Dame Durdan


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