‘Cavalier’ is the new album from Eddi Reader and it’s a cracker.
Sixteen songs mixing original compositions and traditional material – a handful of them co-written with her husband, John Douglas. Recorded in Glasgow it features a vast array of well-known musicians – Boo Hewerdine, Alan Kelly, Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker, Phil Cunningham, Simon Dine, James Grant, Monica Queen and last but, by no means least, Stephen Douglas from the Trashcan Sinatras – all make appearances.
Maiden’s Lament (An Charraig Donn) is a traditional Irish waltz and opens the album. Things speed up with Wonderful, the first of the new songs. A bit of a poppy number about finally accepting your children are no longer children. It’s followed by the title track Cavalier – a song about freedom that’ll get you up on yer feet. Hands up, I was caught by my daughter shaking my backside to it in the kitchen. Not ashamed.
Starlight wouldn’t look out of place in an old smoky jazz club, with it’s lovely baritone and tenor harmonies.
Next, we go way back to the 18th Century. Meg O’ The Glen – a Robert Tannahill poem – is an uptempo Celtic cracker with accordion, fiddles ‘n’ whistles.
My Favourite Dress features a stunning vocal by Eddi accompanied by soft piano and guitar. A lovely song of remembrance and past times and the wanting of living your life again though your too old to do so. There’s something about the vocal on Deirdre’s Farewell To Scotland that’ll tug at yer tear ducts. Ethereal, and reminicent of Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser.
Fishing and Maid O’ The Loch are back-to-back numbers in the middle of the album. Both written by John Douglas, the former seems to be about keeping yourself afloat in troubled times, with the latter, about the last ever paddle steamer built in Britain, which is currently being restored. A happy accident in the running order?
There’s A Hole In The Desert Dear Darling was written for an absent friend. Swaying back and forth with Phil Cunningham accompanying on accordion, it’s wonderful stuff. Old Song written by Boo Hewerdine, is bookended between A Sailor’s Farewell To The Sea and The Loch Tay Boat Song – a cracking hat-trick.
A talented bunch…
Pangur Bán And The Primrose Lass is a 9th century Irish poem about a cat reworked into a traditional folk tune. It’s a quirky, jaunty tune that’ll get you smiling and tapping your feet.
Go Wisely, is the one song on the album, for me, that resonates the most. Being a Dad to a sixteen year old daughter, I’m at that stage of trying to let go, hoping she makes the right choices. Eddi sings, “Go ahead, I always knew this day was comin” So true.
With all the nonsense going on around us in the world, it’s fitting that Eddi closes the album with a rendition of Robert Burns’ A Man’s A Man For A’ That, a hopeful lament that one day we can all come together and be in harmony – a bit like this album.
Bloody wonderful!
2018 Eddi Reader / Reveal Records
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Five Hungry Joes - A pictorial archive of the Trashcan Sinatras. Legendary Scottish Band 