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TRACK LISTING

1. Barbara Allen - Lucy Wainwright Roche 3.07 +
2. Long Lankin - The Devil's Interval 5.20
3. Geordie - The Green House Band 4.17
4. The Outlandish Knight - James Raynard 7.56
5. O Pleasant And Delightful - Noel Harrison 3.36 +
6. Oxford City - Julie Murphy 4.02
7. A Blacksmith Courted Me - Lisa Knapp 5.35
8. John Barleycorn - Barry Dransfield 3.21
9. Edward - James Yorkston & The Athletes 6.10
10. What Is The Life Of A Man? - Michael Weston King 4.44 +
11. The Little Gypsy Girl - Robin & Bina Williamson 4.23 +
12. The Bonny Labouring Boy - Sabbath Folk 4.19 +
13. Come Write Me Down - Serafina Steer 2.00 +
14. The Unquiet Grave - Circulus 4.03 (previously unreleased)
15. The Banks of Sweet Primroses - Tom Paxton 2.59 +
16. The Broomfield Wager - Jacqui McShee's Pentangle 7.49
17. Adieu To Old England - Shirley Collins 2.00

+ denotes tracks especially recorded for this album

Old Wine/New Skins

In a 20-page booklet with song-by-song artists notes, pictures, historic illustrations, music writer Mark Brend in his introductory notes asks what it is that attracts this diverse crowd to these songs of old England, putting the root cause to the evocatively-termed "gleams of enduring truth".

'The songs may be traditional in the sense that they have grown from the past, but they are contemporary in the sense that they speak to us now about the very stuff of life: love, the turn of the seasons, sex, romance, death,' Brend writes.

'Like life itself they are strange and tender and violent. It is this that will ensure that the songs will survive us all, way beyond a time when email and management consultants seem like quaint anachronisms.

'In the meantime, what we have here is 17 performers taking brief custody of the songs, filtering them through their own experiences, styles, talents and traditions, and making something new out of the old.'

"Old Wine/New Skins" is a journey into the past celebrated by skilled musicians that have referenced these songs with love and care, in a collective work of substance and continuity that is in turn, witty, warm, charming, nostalgic, sad, unnerving … much like life.

About the songs and artists