The Morris On Band In Grandson Of Morris On - Sidmouth Festival England 2004.08.04



Sony ECM909 mic/Sony MD MZR90/Adobe Audition >FLAC level 8
Traders Little Helper for checksum file

This was the one and only time we went to this annual festival by the sea in South Devon. I have never seen so many morris dancers in one place, and although some sides were excellent, others were appalling! It absolutely chucked it down with rain during the afternoon I remember, and didn't stop until less than an hour before the performance. Fortunately, the rain held off for the evening, which provided this magnificent performance.

Of all the albums I have heard over the years, there are probably a dozen or so that once put on the record player, get played over and over again. Two of those were Morris On and Son of Morris On. Almost 30 years on, Ashley Hutchings made a follow up album - Grandson of Morris On, with completely different musicians, most of whom have been in the Albion Band.

Whilst queueing outside the open air venue, we heard the band soundchecking, and they sounded superb - and of course LOUD!! As the idiots at Sony decided at that time to not allow minidisc record level changes on the fly, I had to make a guess at the likely sound level, which proved wrong within a few seconds, so I paused and adjusted the record level down during the introduction, missing a little of Ashley's opening poem. The recording is loud and should be so played - particularly whilst sitting in a car at traffic lights!!!

CD1

01 Introduction
02 Shepherd's Hey/Orange in Bloom/The Quaker
03 Blue eyed stranger/The curly-headed ploughboy
04 The life of a Fool
05 Song from Judie Dunlop
06 Brittania coconut dancers of Bacup
07 Gloucester hornpipe/Mr Trill's song
08 Cuckoo's nest/Bedmaking/tune - Martin Carthy & John Kirkpatrick
09 Tom Long's Post/Base over Apex/The Snake
10 Postman's knock

CD2

01 Saturday night/Bobbing Joe/Beaux Badby
02 Little Johnny England/Princess Royal
03 Garland Gay
04 Bumpers o' Stretton
05 Poem/Gloryshears
06 This is the morris my friend
07 Outside Capering Crew dances
08 Four up


Ashley Hutchings Bass/vocals
Phil Beer vocals/guitar/fiddle
Ken Nicol guitar/vocals
Judie Dunlop vocals
John Shepherd Keyboards
Neil Marshall Drums