30: Happy Returns

To celebrate 30 years as a performing musician Kate Rusby has selected songs from her 18 previous albums and recorded new versions with musicians who have inspired her. Including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Richard Hawley and KT Tunstall, these make an impressive list, testament to the respect and affection musicians have for ‘the Barnsley Nightingale.’ Rusby makes her intention clear with the opening track, ‘We Will Sing’. Her voice is somehow intimate and her singing, unencumbered by ornament such as vibrato, is complemented by the rich harmonies and rhythmic alacrity of South African vocal legends Ladysmith Black Mambazo. This is one of several of Rusby’s own compositions, all of which benefit, both melodically and lyrically, from her lifelong immersion in traditional music. So, ‘Let Me Be’, her sort of girl-band-pop-song with KT Tunstall, draws on the trope of a young woman wanting to not be bothered by young men – except the one who can’t be bothered to bother her. And ‘High on a Hill’, with Sarah Jarosz, is informed, surely, by ‘Down to the River to Pray’. The production – credit to Damien O’Kane – and arrangements are exemplary: the brass (Andrew Duncan) on ‘Fairest of Yarrow’ and ‘Jenny ExtraOrdinary Remix’; the strings (Donald Grant), and the conglomeration of guitars on ‘Underneath the Stars’. You might wish for a bit more grit, more variety of pace, but this is an alluring, emotional album – and not without wit.