Album of the Month: Kate Rusby's 20
February 10, 2025
Colin Randall writes: our new Album of the Month feature is intended to highlight records that may be new but are as likely to be old. They just need to be special.My own collection, split between two countries, runs into four figures, a legacy of when I used to review folk for The Daily Telegraph. Agents, record companies, sometimes the artists themselves would send me their albums.
For my first choice, I turn to Kate Rusby, as special as they come. I have known her for 25, maybe 30 years, and treasure memories of our encounters…
From a discography brimming with the quality, style and musical flair that are Kate Rusby trademarks, I felt spoilt for choice as I considered what to select as Salut! Live’s Album of the Month.
Most if not all are stored in my in-car music system so the process of choosing has taken place, however unsuitably, in London traffic.
Having been an unapologetic fan as well as admirer of Rusby and her work for 30 years, I could have gone right back to that eponymous album she recorded with her friend from Barnsley, Kathryn Roberts, in 1995.
It was a special record - I made it my album of the 1990s - and I can never forget my pal Frank Gallagher, a hugely respected figure in Irish music, asking what I knew about "these fabulous wee Yorkshire lassies".
The standout tracks for me were Ned of the Hill and a cover of Suzanne Vega's striking and long anti-war ballad, The Queen and the Soldier. It is mere coincidence that Roberts takes the lead on both, with Rusby adding superb harmonies; I could easily name excellent tracks where Rusby's voice was dominant.
But to choose that album, enduring as it is, would feel as if I were belittling the subsequent careers of both women, Rusby solo and Roberts in an inspired duo with her husband Sean Lakeman. Both also formed part of Equation with all three Lakeman brothers and Rusby had a spell in the Poozies.
I also decided against Hand Me Down, Rusby’s charming lockdown album of pop covers with husband Damien O’Kane and adorable harmonies from their daughters, Daisy and Phoebe. Susanna Hoffs https://www.salutlive.com/2020/07/lockdown-sounds-kate-rusby-and-kids-sing-the-bangles-manic-monday.html
I plumped instead for 20 because, for me, this double album encapsulates Rusby's career better than any other. The title marks her 20 years as a recording artist.
The song choice is faultless except that I greedily regret the absence of Rusby’s Barnsleyfication of Iris DeMent’s Our Town. And the involvement of so many prominent figures of folk, folk-rock and rock, many of them her heroes and mine, is inspired. Check the tracklist: it's an impressive roll call.
And choose your own favourites. Mine: Underneath the Stars, widely covered by choirs but here quite perfect with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band and the glorious Wandering Soul with Eddi Reader, Dick Gaughan and Ron Block). Scroll down for the clips ...
From the extensive archives of Roger Liptrot's essential
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Here is the tracklist with collaborating artists in parentheses:
Disc One
- Awkward Annie (Chris Thile)
- Unquiet Grave (Aoife O'Donovan)
- Sun Grazers (Paul Weller and Gregory Liszt)
- The Lark (Nic Jones)
- Planets (Sarah Jarosz)
- Wandering Soul (Eddi Reader, Dick Gaughan and Ron Block)
- Who Will Sing Me Lullabies (Richard Thompson and Philip Selway)
- Jolly Plough Boys (Dick Gaughan)
- Sho Heen (Eddi Reader, Jerry Douglas, Ron Block and Philip Selway)
- Bitter Boy (Damien O'Kane)
Disc Two
- Baa Baa Black Sheep (a very young Daisy Rusby)
- I Courted a Sailor (Jim Causley)
- Mocking Bird (Sara Watkins and Noam Pikelny)
- The Good Man" (Joe Rusby, Jerry Douglas and Chris Thile)
- Annan Waters" (Bob Fox)
- All God's Angels (Paul Brady and Noam Pikelny)
- Elfin Knight (Dave Burland)
- Wild Goose (Stephen Fretwell)
- Home (Mary Chapin Carpenter and Jim Causley)
- Underneath the Stars (Grimethorpe Colliery Band)
- Bring Me a Boat (Declan O'Rourke)
* Two closing treats before the music.
First, from as long ago as 2007, Salut! Live's three-part interview, Conversations with Kate Rusby
Part Two: On working with Ronan Keating and others
Part Three: "A nattery sort of lass"
Second. Kate of folk music from an interview
with me even longer ago, 2003:
“People still tell me they don't care for folk music, but that they like me. But in the end that's all I sing and play, folk in almost its truest form. I've never minded it being a minority music. It's like a rare diamond; if everyone looks at it, it might seem less special. I like it that people have to look that bit harder for it.”
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