Joshua Burnside – Far O’er the Sounding Main
Independent – Out Now
Strange days…Strange times… it has been described in many ways but these two are the ones I hear most. It has kept me away from writing and listening to music for a number of weeks now. The reasons being some serious home adjustments, a lack of time and, to be honest, the ability to summon up the appropriate level of calm to attempt a music critique.
When it was suggested by our editor and chief that I might like to take a look at the new release from Belfast troubadour, Joshua Burnside, I think he knew exactly what I needed to get me back in the running. Most of the songs on Far O’er the Sounding Main were first heard by Burnside at the Sailortown Folk Club in Belfast, and it’s the regulars, musicians, punters and bar staff that the EP is dedicated to.
The EP barely begins when a melody I know intimately and lyrics I haven’t heard in years come proudly from the speakers. The song is Come my Son (England’s Motorway) and was written, by Ewan McColl (inspired here by a version Burnside heard by Gary Graham and Gerard Mchugh). The melody is one more familiar by many when bedded with Homes of Donegal. With McColl’s, there is a bleakness that unfortunately didn’t keep with the 80’s. Since 2008 the constant necessary emigration of an Irish parent for weeks or months to England or beyond, is still a common thing.
It’s all about your daddy, he’s a man you seldom see.
For he’s had to roam away from home, far away from you and me.
Joshua Burnside in the hands of Joshua Burnside, he handles it quite impressively. It is very hard to sing a song that, I’m guessing, one would hear from Luke Kelly. The normal reaction is to put too much power and puff into it that way beyond your means. Burnside delivers it powerfully but pure. But the almost impossible thing that he does, that I’ve only heard Kelly do, is maintain the voice and narrative of the mother. I believe it is a sign of a true folk singer, that they don’t get in the way of the song.
Joshua doesn’t stop there. He’s taking big swings this lad. Next up is Eileen Aroon, a standard from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem that Burnside learned this from Belfast’s own Mcpeake family. There’s a lovely vibrato in his voice in this one, and the arrangement is simple and gorgeous.
Youth must in time decay
Eileen Aroon
Beauty must fade away
Eileen Aroon.
Castles are sacked in war
Chieftains are scattered far
Truth is a fixed star
Eileen Aroon.
Kitty May, a lovely instrumental, is next. It sounds like a few tunes I know, but is a slip-jig composed by Burnside himself and dedicated to his younger sister Catherine Burnside. He can tell a story in his tune as well as he can in song. It’s a Martin Hayes style that’s not flashy or fast, but sincere with every note. Besides the appearance of the cello, played by Zarah Fleming, Burnside plays guitars, banjo and violin on the EP. To be able to capture such sentiment in a multi-track recording is no easy task.
Lambs on the Green Hill has been covered by many prominent folk, and Joshua Burnside’s interpretation is no slouch. The vocal is flawless, allowing the story to flow and be told without sickly sentiment. Again, the arrangement is lush without being overbearing. This EP is fast becoming my favourite and most impressive Joshua Burnside performance yet.
The Bonny Bunch of Roses finishes proceedings in a matter of fact manner. For his interpretation of the Fairport Convention number, he is joined by guest vocalists Gary Graham and Gerard Mchugh, a drone and the sound of the storm. It’s a pity, I could have handled another five songs easily. Burnside’s interpretations of some of folk’s classics, show him as a true voice of folk. Perhaps one that may wander and experiment, but knows its home and every now and again will return there to show us a little of what he may have picked up along the way.
I kind of get the feeling that as far as the folk scene goes, Joshua Burnside is always on the outside looking in. But rather than dwell on it, he revels in its freedom, bending the rules in a way that most of those with their foot solidly in the door never can nor want to do. If this is how he continues, I can see myself never tiring of his releases.
If you don’t know these songs, you should, and this would be a great way to hear them for the first time. If you have given them a spin many times, by all the greats, and think you’ve heard it all and could hear it no better…well, you’d owe it to this lad to give it a serious looking over…
Order Far O’er the Sounding Main via Bandcamp here: https://joshuaburnside.bandcamp.com/album/far-oer-the-sounding-main