Daughters of Albion
Folk Britannia, Barbican, London

Evening Standard
Monday 6 February 2006

There's nowt so extraordinary as British Folk (4 stars)
By Mark Espiner

There really is nowt so queer as folk. One minute it's a beardie-wierdie
pursuit for fogeys, the next it's a fashion trend. But the Barbican has been
programming great traditional music for ages, and its latest offering, Folk
Britannia, was a triumph, stripping away the Aran sweater to show us the
heart, the politics and the ballads that sing about life, love, sex and
death.

Billy Bragg hosted the opener, Whose Side Are You On?, a celebration of folk
music's radical politics. Unbridled dissent found the vocal chords of great
singers including Andy Irvine, whose homage to Woodie Guthrie with its
refrain "All you facists are bound to lose, you're bound to lose" was
rousing especially when the audience joined in.

The closing night, Into the Mystic, had Suede's Bernard Butler riffing with
Jimmy Page's folk guitar hero, Bert Jansch, and other acts, some less
polished, besides. These included reclusive Sixties folk-hippy Vashti
Bunyan, whose return to the stage was eagerly anticipated. The audience were
a bit like a support group for the shy singer, but, disappointingly, the
programme moved in such varied fits and starts it never quite hit the right
note.

The jewel in the crown, though, was sandwiched between on the Friday night.
The Daughters of Albion had women singers of England backed by a band that
was as tight as it was unusual - it used a bowed saw in one song - and a set
that included everything from traditional songs to PJ Harvey.

All of the individual performances were outstanding and spellbinding. But
the ensemble encore with three generations of women - Norma Waterson, Eliza
Carthy, Lou Rhodes, Sheila Chandra, and Kathryn Williams singing at
full-term pregnancy - was the clincher. Together they sang the tearjerking
Sandy Denny classic Who Knows Where The Time Goes? It was an extraordinary
tale of exceptional folk.