Cambridge Folk Festival: Celebrating 50 Years

Not, as you might have supposed, a track from each year of the Cambridge Folk Festival's 50-year history, but a trawl through the treasury of live tracks recorded for broadcast by Smooth Operations. Thus, the earliest tracks here come from Nick Lowe and Taj Mahal at the 1998 festival, with the vast majority chronicling stand-out performances over the last decade. Of course the likes of Richard Thompson, Loudon Wainwright III and Martin Simpson are represented, but the bracingly eclectic nature of the festival is reflected too, with, for instance, Femi Kuti & The Positive Force from 2011 and The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain's unique take on ‘Theme from Shaft’ from 2007. I was thrilled to be reminded of the Heritage Blues Orchestra's performance last year with ‘Clarksdale Moan’ and moved yet again to tears by The Unthanks performing ‘King of Rome’ with the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band from 2012. But there really is not a duff track in sight on this very reasonably priced collection and if there is any sort of a downside, it can only be the inevitable whetting of the appetite to hear a whole lot more of this stuff.