Light Years

There came a time when certain carols were no longer welcome in church. So people went to the pub and sang them there. It’s a tradition still lively in Yorkshire and as a child Kate Rusby spent many a Sunday afternoon in the taproom, eating crisps and colouring in, while all around her people sang. This made a profound impression on her and every December Rusby goes on tour with a band to sing these songs. She records them, too – Light Years being her seventh Christmas album.

Rusby does not, though, tie herself to that tradition. As well as a version of ‘While Shepherds Watched’ (titled ‘Rusby Shepherds’) and ‘Nowell, Nowell’ she includes ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ and ‘Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree/Sleigh Ride’, Chris de Burgh’s ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’ and even Sid Kipper’s parodic (yet heartfelt) appeal for the detaining of carol singers, ‘Arrest these Merry Gentlemen’.

There’s a variety of musical treatments, too, with lovely brass (arranged by Andrew Duncan) especially on the opening track, ‘Spean’, a kind of funky banjo on ‘Rusby Shepherds’ and aptly cosmic synth in ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’. The production of ‘The Moon Shines Bright’, which features Alison Krauss and Ron Block, is lush. But Rusby, singing sweetly, catches the poignant allure of this Gypsy carol.