This is one of my favourite folk albums. Dave Goulder’s great Derbyshire voice, with a hint of mischief, and great guitar work, while Liz Dyer’s vocals on 5 of the tracks are superb make for a real folk treat. This was Dave’s third album on the ARGO label. The duo are very well supported by Tony Crozier’s ‘Broken Consort’ with Tony (guitar, Pandora and cittern), Brian Cooper (crumhorn, recorder and psaltery) and Anne Crozier (recorder, psaltery, pipe and tabor).
The album starts with the classic ‘The sexton and the carpenter’ with some sublime guitar work and Dave is at his mischievous best. Great story and brilliant ending, posing the question ‘was she really worth it?’. Liz stars on the ‘Dark north sea’ with some classic passionate singing about her man disappearing over the sea’s horizon. ‘The three old men’ is another humorous song with Dave doing the honours – written by Dave about three buttresses in Scotland over a thousand feet each, with Dave’s imagination moving into overdrive – great song. Liz sings the 16th Century Robin Hood tale with a lovely pure voice, with great backing from the Broken Consort. The title track is led by Dave, again backed by the Broken Consort and tells the tale of the Raven and the Crow discussing the methods used by Birds of Prey for clearing up carrion (strange subject, but great song). The blacksmith is probably Liz’s best song of the album, dealing with an unusual tune and metre, delivering an angry response to her lover’s rejection.
The second side starts with the upbeat ‘The old market square’ giving a lovely poetic painting of a market square in Mansfield – great guitar again and superb vocals by Dave. Liz then sings the traditional ‘The friar in the well’ a cappella – a great story, showing that lecherous clergy are not a new phenomenon, but this friar certainly met his match on this occasion. Dave sings the very cleverly constructed ‘A most unpleasant way, sir’ which is a twist on the old ‘pass the parcel’ game, unfortunately this game involves a vicious vulture, who has sinister intentions!! ‘The long and lonely winter’ could be the theme tune to a ‘Game of thrones’ and Dave sings this ballad with great passion. Liz sings ‘Till the prawn-boats come’ with great clarity and creates a fabulous atmosphere with Dave providing a great backing on his guitar, superb. Lastly we have ‘When they laid you in the ground’ sung by Dave, backed by his guitar and Brian Cooper on psaltery – the song is described simply as an elegy – and is a fantastic ending to the album.
I cannot praise this album highly enough. It hooks you on first hearing and then you get more and more from the album on each subsequent play. Dave and Liz are vocally complete opposites, with Dave’s nasal Derbyshire twang compares with the pure delightful vocals that Liz provides. This is a fabulous album, a must for any fan of contemporary singer/songwriter folk music (Dave writes all the tracks except for the 3 traditional songs) from the early 70’s. This is a forgotten gem.
