Mellow With Ale From The Horn

Ok, I’m back to posting again (hopefully!)… the past few months while I found songs and such that would be good stuff to post, I either couldn’t think of something I wanted to say about it, or I was too lazy to. I guess it was a kind of writers’ block, really. Anyway, I recently bought my parents a cd burner for their computer, and that got me interested in backing up some of their old records (especially the old out of print ones) to the computer and burning them to cds. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll find enough interesting stuff there to last me a while until I get back into the swing of things…

First off is “Mellow With Ale From The Horn” by John Roberts and Tony Barrand, recorded in 1975. It’s a sort of mix between sea shanties, English folk-songs, and one or two songs a bit more modern than the rest. With the exception of “Salt River, Colored Aristocracy (instrumental) and “Albert And The Lion” (a spoken-word story), the rest of the album is of these two men singing without accompaniment… and even when they do have backing instruments it’s rather minimal.

The back of the album gives rather detailed descriptions of the songs and assorted other notes…

– Save Your Money While You’re Young
– Staines Morris
– Barbara Allen
– Salt River, Colored Aristocracy
– Oats And Beans And Barley Grow
– Kate And Her Horns
– Come Day, Go Day
– The Albatross
– The Wings Of A Goney
– The Handsome Cabin Boy
– Five Foot Flirt
– Our Bill
– Albert And The Lion
– Salvation Band

Personally, my favorite tracks of all are “Staines Morris”, “Come Day, Go Day”, and especially “Salvation Band”.

Apparently they’re still performing, as they produced a cd in 2003, and now Front Hall Records seems to be a mail-order album business. Also, Golden Hind Music looks like they have copies of their albums (seemingly both new and old, from what I see) for purchase.

Next post will be another full album of sea-shanties, with a few songs by John and Tony on this album as well!