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Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings: Parlour Ballads

Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings: Parlour Ballads (Hudson HUD052LP)

Parlour Ballads
Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings

Hudson Records HUD052CD (CD, UK, 27 September 2024)
Hudson Records HUD052LP (LP, UK, late October 2024)

“Parlour Music” is a genre that has been much derided over the centuries. Its heyday was the Victorian era when many middle-class houses had pianos and many middle-class sons and daughters could sight-read piano scores to a high level, musical literacy being highly prized. Many parlour songs are cloying, nationalistic, pompous and irritating to modern ears, but nestling among the dross there are many shining gems to be found. The early folk song collectors despised all these songs as fakery, usurping the place of the naturally occurring folk songs of the rural working class.

This album is not a collection of parlour songs in the technical sense of the term, but it does seek to awaken the sound of the old, well loved, slightly out of tune domestic piano and to reunite it with (or introduce it to) songs that might feel glad of the acquaintance.

Produced by Andy Bell;
Recorded by Andy Bell;
Mixed by Andy Bell at Hudson Studios;
Mastered by Sam Proctor at Lismore Mastering;
Photography by Emma Ledwith;
Graphic design by Robin Beatty

KLOF Magazine review by Thomas Blake

Musicians

Jon Boden: vocals, piano, guitar, fiddle;
Rob Harbron: vocals, concertina, harmonium, banjo;
Sally Hawkins: fiddle, oboe, cor anglais;
M.G. Boulter: vocals, pedal steel guitar, dobro, guitar;
Sam Sweeney: vocals, drums, fiddle;
Ben Nicholls: vocals, double bass, bass guitar

Tracks

LP Side 1

  1. On One April Morning (Roud 1546) (4.56)
  2. Bonny Bunch of Roses (Roud 664; Laws J5; G/D 1:155) (5.33)
  3. Clock o’ Clay (5.01)
  4. Merry Mountain Child (Roud 1769; TYG 42) (3.57)
  5. Mortal Cares (3.57)

LP Side 2

  1. The Oggie Man (2.42)
  2. Old Brown’s Daughter (Roud 1426) (4.38)
  3. The Prentice Boy (Roud 263; Laws P35; G/D 2:200) (4.09)
  4. Danny Deever (6.36)
  5. The Rose of Allendale (Roud 1218) (5.46)
  6. The London Waterman (Roud 1186) (3.42)

Track 1 George Brown;
Tracks 2, 4, 8, 11 trad.;
Track 3 words John Clare, music Jon Boden;
Track 5 Jon Boden, written for a theatre production of The Rover by Restoration playwright Aphra Behn;
Track 6 Cyril Tawney;
Track 7 George W. Hunt;
Track 9 Rudyard Kipling, trad. arr. Peter Bellamy;
Track 10 Charles Jefferys, Sidney Nelson;
Track 11 Charles Dibdin