For a duo that only lasted a few years in the early 1980s — occasional later reformations notwithstanding — Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol have had a goodly number of CDs released over the decades. In the timeframe when they were most active during Faiport Convention’s hiatus, there were two studio sets (the In The Club cassette and Close To The Wind LP) as well as the Live At The White Bear album. Since then, all the above have been reissued at various points, while further archival recordings surfaced on the Another Fine Mess live CD in 2002.
Now we are presented with When We Were Very Young, two CDs worth of previously unreleased material recorded between 1982 and 1984 at various venues around the world. I don’t know if we could say they were “very” young at the time, but we can let that pass. It’s a cute title to go with the equally charming Winnie The Pooh-style packaging.
The track list does contain some songs and instrumentals that have appeared on other Swarbrick/Nicol albums, but these are from different sources and in some cases have somewhat different arrangements. As well as pieces only performed by the duo previously such as “After The Thrill” and the “Democratic Rage” medley, various Fairport classics are rearranged for the stripped back acoustic format, and adapt themselves very nicely. These include “Rosie”, the “Hen’s March/Four Poster Bed” tune set, and a version of “The Poor Ditching Boy” that I think I prefer to the band’s studio recording as it seems to have a more natural flow to the arrangement this way. Even the epic “Sloth” works well acoustically with plenty of room for the expected improvisation; Swarb and Simon’s banter at the start shows how much they are enjoying each other’s company as well.
If one had to pick a couple of tracks to show off the quality of musicianship, perhaps “Pittengardener’s Rant/The Floggin’” would be a good start, with Swarbrick’s dexterity and improvisational skills on the fiddle underpinned by Nicol’s sympathetic backing on acoustic guitar. Follow that with the frankly spectacular playing on “Merry Boys of Greenland/Olifiord Jack/Villafjord”, and it’s immediately obvious why the duo were in such demand, and why the release of this CD is so welcome now.
Nicol’s vocals show he was well on the way to becoming “lead singer quality”, though perhaps still to develop the distinctive baritone that came a little later. His song choices include the dramatic and sensitively handled “Pavane” by Richard & Linda Thompson, “Time To Ring Some Changes” (also by RT, with Swarb only on backing vocals here), and a couple of previously unreleased songs — the outrageously and deliberately sexist “She Is Woman” and the comedic “The Dogs They Had A Party”. A couple of tracks are Nicol solo instrumentals, showing how tasty his playing can be, and both “End Of A Holiday” and ”Teddy Bear’s Picnic” seem to be unexpected requests, so full marks are deserved for getting through them without issue!
The sound quality does vary noticeably depending on the source tape (you get that with 30 year old cassettes) but it is all entirely listenable. It’s great that the “Swarbrick archives” have provided us with this fine collection and the good news is that there is more to come — look for unreleased live Swarbrick/Carthy and Fairport CDs in the future!
(Talking Elephant, 2010)
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