Constant Companion

Cunning folk were – are – people of wisdom, practitioners of folk medicine and magic. Here, though, Cunning Folk is a single, acoustic guitar playing singer, George Hoyle, who runs a folklore society. The constant companion of the title? Well, perhaps the whole lore of Britain, the traditions of the land, its peoples and their songs, in which he is steeped.

All but four of the 19 tracks are traditional songs, the exceptions being a fine morris tune learned from a recording of the great dancer and concertina player, William Kimber; Ewan MacColl's ‘Dirty Old Town’ and a couple by Cunning Folk himself.

He sings several of the best-known English folk songs. The album opens with ‘Seeds of Love’, the very first of the 4,977 songs and tunes collected by Cecil Sharp (this one from a gardener wonderfully called John England). Then come ‘Lovely Joan’, ‘Bruton Town’ and ‘Matty Groves’, that tale of cross-class seduction and murder, famous from the workout Fairport Convention gave it on Liege & Lief. Anyone familiar with the work of Shirley Collins will know ‘Death and the Lady’, the plaintive account of a woman's vain attempt to buy off the Grim Reaper. Cunning Folk creates interesting guitar accompaniments, often sparse, appropriate to the tenor of the songs. He avoids overpowering these story songs by singing with restraint, but greater vocal range and expression would serve them better.