David Carroll and Friends — Bold Reynold

Multi-instrumentalist David Carroll’s latest album Bold Reynold features a collection of folk classics reworked for a modern age. 

Caroll himself started playing in the folk clubs of the 1970s, before making the slight switch to becoming a repairer of stringer instruments, and a much in-demand session musician. He has worked with a host of big-name artists over the years, however, Bold Reynold is the first time he has recorded an album under his own name. Carroll has been fortunate enough to call on friends and colleagues he has worked with during his session days to provide the extra instrumentation on this album, bass legend Dave Pegg (Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention and Band of Joy), percussionist Dave Oberle and woodwind expert, Brian Gulland (both Gryphon), guitarist Graeme Taylor (Gryphon and the Albion Band), fiddle player Chris Leslie (Fairport Convention and The Albion Band), banjo player Tom Spencer (The Yo-Yos, Dogs D’Amour and The Men they Couldn’t Hang), and vocalist Lucy Cooper.

On to the music, the album opens with the anti-whaling song, The Last Leviathan, a heartfelt paean to the prospect of a better world. The musicianship is, as one would expect, of the highest standard and the arrangement is excellent. Irish traditional song, Follow Me Up to Carlow is up next and tells the tale of the defeat of a 3,000-strong English army by Fiach Mac Aodh Ó Broin in 1580. Once again it is impeccably arranged, and the performances are once again faultless. Poor Murdered Woman is a ballad about Lucy Broadwood who was murdered on Leatherhead Common in January, 1834. The modern production is the only thing that differentiates the music on this album from the very best of 1970s folk rock. It seems almost too easy to compare the sound of the band on this album with Fairport Convention at their very best, but one cannot help but do so.  Banks of the Nile is an anti-war song that dates back to 1801 and the Napoleonic war in Egypt, and features a beautifully wrought lead vocal from Lucy Cooper. Carroll’s achingly beautiful rendition of Irish folk classic She Moves Through the Fair is up next with some lovely dual vocals from Carroll and Cooper. High Barbaree picks up the pace again after a couple of ballads, originally sung as a capstan shanty as far back as the 16th century, the song tells the tale of the conflicts that took place with pirate ships operating off the shore of the Barbary Coast in Africa. Once again, Carroll’s skills as an arranger come to the fore and of course the performances are of the highest quality. Poor Man’s Sorrow keeps the quality up and paves the way for the album’s work of genius, The Battle, written by Dave Cousins of The Strawbs and inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s cinematic masterpiece, The Seventh Seal. As much as I have enjoyed every second of the album up to this point, this track is every bit the masterpiece that the film is. It’s an epic slab folk-rock genius and deserves to be recognised as such. The album’s finale Gentlemen of High Renown is a Gryphon-tinged jig that runs into the Fox Hunter’s Jig for the final few moments.

Bold Reynold is one of the rarest of masterpieces, an album that recalls a musical genre’s past glories and actually manages to sound as good as the music it recalls. The production is outstanding, every instrument sings out clear and proud, Graeme Taylor has excelled in this department, whilst the arrangements of every song sound vibrant and fresh and the whole band sound like they’re having the time of their lives. This is a wonderful album, packed with outstanding music, songs and performances. Part of me wonders what would have happened if David Carroll had recorded a solo album in the 1970s, but a bigger part of me is just glad we managed to get this masterpiece of folk rock goodness at all.