Bold Reynold

Despite his extensive success performing in folk clubs in the 1970s, David Carroll never got around to recording a solo album. Well known as a player, maker and repairer of multiple stringed instruments he has now made a thoroughly enjoyable album of traditional folk/folk-rock. The song titles should be familiar to anyone who followed the British folk music of the 60s and 70s. Joining him on this nostalgic festival of folk is a strong line-up of famous friends including two former Fairports and three from medieval prog-rockers Gryphon.

The first half is melancholic and commences with the moving anti-whaling song ‘The Last Leviathan’. Napoleonic anti-war song ‘Banks of the Nile’ has Lucy Cooper finely singing the part immortalised by Sandy Denny on the first Fotheringay album. ‘She Moved Through the Fair’ (Lucy Cooper singing a duet with David Carroll) is highly emotive and features Carroll playing uilleann pipes as it slides seamlessly into ‘Isle of Skye’ at the end. Other titles are more lively and include jaunty pirate shanty ‘High Barbaree’ and the closing ‘Gentleman of High Renown’, a fox-hunting tale that David Carroll first heard from the Copper Family. It is from this song that the title ‘Bold Reynold’ originates and the song ends in a lively fox hunter's jig. Exemplary musicianship throughout this album of classic old-school folk-rock.