An Evening With

To celebrate more than 20 years as a duo, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan opted not for some studio compilation album but a live one, a set of songs and tunes ranging across their partnership as well as their solo and collaborative careers.

Recorded at a church in Hertfordshire and in Crookes Social Club in their home town of Sheffield, it kicks off with ‘Broadside’ from The Elizabethan Session, one of numerous major collaborative song projects they have been part of in recent years. New songs include a paean to Sheffield's threatened trees in the closer ‘Mr Weather’, while there are strong accounts of Robb Johnson's ‘The Herald of Free Enterprise’ and Australian bush poet Henry Lawson's ‘The Outside Track’. ‘Fragile Water’ is a compelling take on a highlight from Kerr's fine solo album, Instar, while favourites from their live shows, such as ‘Australian Waltzes’ and ‘Anderson's Coast’ are ebullient and energetic. From the tradition, there's a distinctive take of ‘Barbara Allen’ and tune sets such as Northumbrian pipe air ‘Sir John Fenwick's’ coupled with a pair of Will Taylor's tunes that have been in their repertoire from the beginning.

This is the couple's first live album, and first release since their 2010's BBC Radio 2 Folk award-winning Twice Reflected Sun (reviewed in #71). It's good to have them back.