Pretty Peggy

The second album from the Cornish-based singer, Britain's Got Talent finalist and BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner develops the dynamic, energetic folk rock of his 2015 debut, while at the same time continuing the mixture of boldly modernised, updated traditional songs alongside originals that focus on narrative. ‘When the Reivers Call’ is drawn from medieval accounts of the raiding cultures on the England-Scottish borders; ‘Chasing Shadows’ is much more tender and personal; and there's a fine cover of Bob Dylan's ‘Crash on the Levee’.
It opens with a vibrant whaling song, ‘Greenland Whale’, that sounds as youthful and muscular as a whaling crew, while the Civil War ballad, ‘Pretty Peggy-O’, is returned to its Scottish origins on ‘Bonny Lass of Fyvie’, with guest vocals from Cara Dillon and Mike McGoldrick on uilleann pipes. There are fine versions, too, of ‘The Ship’s Carpenter' (here called ‘The Shining Ship’) and ‘If I Were a Blackbird’, which features Damien O'Kane's tenor guitar.
Guests aside, the core band is a rich, seven-strong mix of guitars, bouzouki, flutes, pipes and whistles, plus fiddle, banjo, melodeon and bodhrán, creating plenty of light and shade and energy across the 12 tracks. It's an album that leaves you in no doubt that they would sound great on stage.