Water of Tyne

Magnetic North East is a new organisation dedicated to promoting the music, culture, art and heritage – the identity, then – of North-East England. MNE's first venture is a collection of songs and tunes, old and new, relating to the River Tyne. They are composed and/or performed by some of the area's best-known musicians – Jimmy Nail, Kathryn Tickell, Bob Fox and the Unthank sisters among them – alongside some emerging artists such as the singer Hannah Rickard and Superfolkus, a young band that Tickell has nurtured.

Slap bang in the middle is ‘Big River’; Jimmy Nail's song was chosen by the readers of the local paper as their favourite North-East song. Bob Fox gives a fine account of this elegy to the Tyne's industrial past, to the docks, shipbuilding and coal. All have now disappeared but Nail's song ends with a declaration of faith that this ‘big, big river… will rise again.’

Becky and Rachel Unthank sing the anti-pressgang song ‘Canny Keel Lad’; Kathryn Tickell's father Mike sings ‘Coaly Tyne’. Both of these old dialect songs capture the essence of the place. So does ‘Dance (To Your Daddy)’, a new song drawing on the familiar traditional one. In between there are three ‘Interludes’, instrumentals improvised around Tyneside songs by Tickell on fiddle and guitarist Ian Stephenson. These, especially the second one, ‘The Skippers Wedding’ are particularly lovely.