The Albion Band Album Reviews

Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention in 1969. He founded Steeleye Span, but also started The Albion Country Band with his wife, Shirley Collins. They released the classic No Roses in 1971 before breaking up in 1973. Collins and Hutchings continued together in the Etchingham Steam Band, formed around acoustic instruments during an era of power cuts. The Steam Band only recorded a couple of medleys, not a full album.

Hutchings returned to the Albion Band in 1976, releasing The Battle of the Field, which had been shelved since 1973. He recruited Nicol, fiddle player Ric Sanders, and excellent vocalist John Tams, and they recorded a couple of strong folk-rock albums.

Tams left in 1980 and formed Home Service. The Albion Band struggled on through the 1980s, struggling to find an identity in a changing market. This page focuses on their first decade, when they released a couple of folk-rock classics.

No Roses

Battle of the Field

The Prospect Before Us

Rise Up Like The Sun

Lark Rise to Candleford

10 Best Albion Band Songs

The Albion Band Album Reviews

No Roses

1971, 9/10
Ashley Hutchings originally formed The Albion Band to support his then-wife, Shirley Collins. It’s low-key, but it features 27 different musicians, as anyone who dropped by the studio was invited to join. The core band is Hutchings’ former Fairport comrades. Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, and Dave Mattacks are heavily involved. But many folk luminaries drop by, like Nic Jones and Maddy Prior.

No Roses finds a middle ground between Collins’ traditional leanings and the electric sounds Hutchings pioneered in Fairport. But it’s still exploratory – the opener ‘Claudy Banks’ features Alan Cave on bassoon and British free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill. ‘Banks of the Bann’ is sung to the tune of the hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’, and it’s lovely. ‘Murder of Maria Marten’ is the lengthy epic, recalling Fairport’s dark epics like ‘Tam Lin’, but with quieter interludes featuring Jones and Barry Dransfield on fiddles.

No Roses is a folk-rock classic, very nearly as good as the more celebrated Liege and Lief.

Battle of the Field

1976, 7/10
The Albion Band recorded Battle of the Field in 1973. But they were unable to support it with a tour, so the album was shelved until the band reformed in 1976. This version of the band features Hutchings and Nicol, supported by folk-rock mainstays Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, and Sue Harris. It’s solid, but it lacks the top-class vocals of other 1970s Albion albums – it’s hard to measure up to John Tams and Shirley Collins.

[This is ] actually Albion IV, playing a programme opener written for them by Richard Thompson. The first Albion accompanied Shirley Collins on her No Roses album, Albion II had Royston Wood, Steve Ashley and Sue Draheim in it and the only recording they did was to back Steve on his recording of Lord Bateman for his debut album, Stroll On. Albion III was a temporary group with Richard Thompson in it, while Martin Carthy and John and Sue Kirkpatrick got free of other commitments to join Roger Swallow, Simon Nicol and Ashley Hutchings in Albion IV.
Battle of the Field, liner notes

Most of the record is traditional material, but the song also includes two Richard Thompson originals. The record opens with Thompson’s ‘Albion Sunrise’, a rousing number with Morris band interludes. ‘Reaphook and the Sickle’ was a late addition – the band removed ‘All of a Row’ after Carthy included it on a 1974 solo album.

There’s a solid album here, but it would be much better with a stronger vocalist.

The Prospect Before Us

1977, 7.5/10
Hutchings formed a new Albion Band in 1976, aiming of play traditional dance music. The members included Simon Nicol, Graeme Taylor from Gryphon, Phil Pickett and John Sothcott (playing ye olde instruments like crumhorns and citoles), and fiddle player Ric Sanders. The most significant addition is vocalist and melodeon player John Tams. The Prospect Before Us combines instrumentals with fully fledged songs, serving as a bridge between Battle of the Field and Rise Up Like The Sun.

With Tams on board, the songs featuring his vocals are the highlights. Shirley Collins is back to duet with him, and they’re fun together in ‘Hopping Down in Kent’.

Until fairly recently the annual excursion to pick hops in Kent was the only holiday of the year for many Cockney families. It wasn’t much of a rest for them, as this song indicates.
Ashley Hutchings, A Little Music

‘Huntsman’s Chorus’ is even better, with a rousing chorus and fun horns. Tams’ vocal sounds great on ‘Wassail Song’ – along with ‘The Sussex Carol’ as a bonus track, there’s a surprising Christmas theme. The arrangements are joyous, with stinging electric guitars jostling with more traditional instruments.

The Prospect Before Us is often excellent, but it feels like a warm-up for their next record.

Rise Up Like The Sun

1978, 9/10
John Tams took a greater role on Rise Up Like The Sun, co-producing with Joe Boyd. The traditional instrumentals of the two previous records are largely gone – instead, there’s a wide-ranging set of songs. The core band of Nicol, Mattacks, and Hutchings anchored Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief a decade earlier – it’s fitting, since Rise Up Like The Sun might be the most impressive British folk-rock album of the 1970s.

There’s also an impressive array of backing vocalists, including Kate McGaggigle, the Thompsons, and Martin Carthy.

Tams wrote the rousing opener ‘Ragged Heroes’, with the stinging guitar and singalong chorus of classic folk rock. Even better is ‘House In The Country’, a gorgeous ballad with Tams and McGarrigle harmonising. ‘Poor Old Horse’ is a terrific singalong, while ‘Ampleforth/Lay Me Low’ combines a mournful sword dance with a sombre singalong.

It’s not perfect – the closing ‘Gresford Disaster’ outstays its welcome, as does the fusion part of ‘Afro Blue/Danse Royale’. The CD edition adds four tracks, which are strong enough to feel like part of the album. Linda Thompson sings ‘Rainbow Over The Hill’, a song better than most of the Thompsons’ own late 1970s work.

Rise Up Like The Sun is a folk-rock landmark.

Lark Rise to Candleford

1980, 7/10
Rise Up Like The Sun was so good that you’d think you’d try to run it back and make a similar record. But instead, the Albions became the house band for a National Theatre production. Keith Dewhurst adapted Flora Thompson’s beloved trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels, Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green. Richard Mabey wrote that the three novels tell of how life in English villages changes over the course of the era. “Quiet, close-knit and peaceful rural culture, governed by the seasons, began a transformation, through agricultural mechanisation, better communications and urban expansion, into the homogenised society of today.”

It’s a hotchpotch record, punctuated by theatre dialogue and mixing original songs with tunes from the turn of the 20th century. It’s not as interesting to hear them tackle old chestnuts, although ‘Lemady / Arise and Pick a Posy’ with Martin Carthy on lead vocals is my favourite tune here. But there are lovely originals like Tams’ ‘Snow Falls’ and Shirley Collins’ ‘Witch Elder’.