Anne Briggs - A Collection
List Price:
Our Price: $10.53
You Save: $6.46 (38%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $10.52 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Music CD Cover
Artist: Anne BriggsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Music Label: Topic Records
Soundtracks:
- The Recruited Collier
- The Doffing Mistress
- She Moves Through The Fair
- Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
- Lowlands
- My Bonny Boy
- Polly Vaughan
- Rosemary Lane
- Gathering Rushes In The Month Of May
- The Whirling Whorl
- The Stonecutter Boy
- Martinmas Time
- Blackwater Slide
- The Snow Melts The Soonest
- Willie O'Winsbury
- Go Your Way
- Thorneymoor Woods
- The Cuckoo
- Reynardine
- Young Tambling
- Living By The Water
- Maa Bonny Lad
Free Music Notes for A Collection
Free Music Review: Austere, restrained, dignified ,masterful delivery
Hit: 5 Stars
This is like immersion in cold water-- once you get used to the bracing difference from normal sensation, you do not want to leave. Briggs' soprano is pure, free of much ornamentation but for this all the more controlled and focused. Briggs allows the song to guide her, and while she directs its interpretation by careful phrasing and pitch, she does not distract the listener from the narrative by any grandstanding. Briggs, in a Northern English/Scots style, understates her own transmittal of the tune. She points back, rather, to the tune.
If this makes sense, then you may like Briggs' self-effacing approach. This is not to make her sound mealy-mouthed or unable to make her presence felt, rather that Briggs steps aside, or gives the illusion of doing so, to let the song take the stage. No mean feat for a modern singer, like us all too aware of the celebrity and the poser who pretend to go back to revive an indigenous tradition in the name of roots or folk but really in the name of self-promotion and aggrandizement off of the public domain. If you have enjoyed Sweeney's Men, Andy Irvine, Planxty, or the numerous side projects of Irish trad in the 1970s onward, go back here to the origins of what became, slightly later in the 60s, the genesis of folk-rock. Even the Pogues, via a Sweeney partner Terry Woods of Moynihan, can attest to the far-ranging impact from two decades earlier of Briggs' arrival on the mid-60s scene. Here, partner Johnny Moynihan (who with another fellow Sweeney, Andy Irvine, brought into Ireland the bouzouki) gives subtle backing to a few tunes; these I would hold gain in resonance. I prefer the songs with a bit of instrumental enhancement, but these are few in the total heard here.
The majority are unaccompanied, and their austerity may prove daunting in extended listenings unless you are prepared for very intense, committed, and sustained delivery of British song as it may have, you wonder, been heard long before tape recorders.
Briggs' own discomfort with her recorded voice apparently led to her own termination of her career at least on vinyl by the early 70s. However, those of us less critical than the creator of these song versions that influenced so many in the past four decades of British folk in its acoustic and electric versions will want to pay close attention to where the origins of contemporary folk lie for so many especially British and also some Irish singers and musicians. Even Jimmy Page, indirectly via Bert Jansch and "Blackwaterslide" reveals the influence of Briggs, as does Sandy Denny and those who have followed in turn in her own considerable talents and pioneering inventiveness. Still, Briggs preceded Sandy D and Fairport and Steeleye and Sweeney's and all the rest of the later 60s crowd. This is where the revival began, for all practical purposes, for those who took up the challenge of restoring folk to its rightful place in the song tradition.
The stunning introduction to modern listeners here of the first and definitive "Willie O'Winsbury" speaks well for the entire collection; the penultimate line shows the singer's slight shift of emphasis, which sums up many verses and role reversals that the song tells of by Briggs' nuanced moment, caught on record so memorably. Of such slight polishing comes dazzling displays for us who can hear these early tracks, gathered with Colin Harper's liner notes and a handsome presentation from Topic. The result gives us the definitive compilation of this singer's best moments-- at least on tape.
Folk Music CDs
Music Genres
Top music charts in Folk Music CDs
Margie Adam - Another PlaceRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Ann Reed - Road of the HeartRelease date: 1994-06-29; Music CD
Best price: $29.99
Ann Reed - Back & ForthRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - Rainbow PathRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops:
Joanne Rand - Grant Me EyesRelease date: 2001-08-02; Music CD
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
Betty - Hello Betty!Release date: 1994-03-21; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - AmazonRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Stage 2: Human HeartRelease date: 1997-04-11; Music CD
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Cyntia Smith, Ruth Barrett - Heart Is the Only NationRelease date: 1996-07-17; Music CD
Best price: $96.66
Giants! A Colossal Collection of Tales and Tunesby Jim Weiss
Greathall Productions, Inc.; Greathall Productions; Published: 1996-11-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.68
Price in other shops:
Top Rated Albums
Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revivalby Colin Harper
Bloomsbury UK; Published: 2007-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.57
Price in other shops:
Vashti Bunyan - LookafteringRelease date: 2005-10-25; Music CD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Bert Jansch - Best of Bert JanschRelease date: 1992-06-22; Music CD
Best price: $10.75
Price in other shops:
Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The HarvestRelease date: 2011-06-28; Music CD
Best price: $9.84
Price in other shops:
Bert Jansch - Jack OrionRelease date: 2001-08-21; Music CD
Best price: $6.44
Price in other shops:
Anne Briggs - Sing a Song for YouRelease date: 2002-04-09; Music CD
Best price: $12.53
Price in other shops:
Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond DayRelease date: 2004-10-19; Music CD
Best price: $9.06
Price in other shops:
Vashti Bunyan - Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967Release date: 2007-11-13; Music CD
Best price: $10.82
Price in other shops:
Anne Briggs - Anne BriggsRelease date: 2008-08-19; Music CD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Anne Briggs - Time Has Come (Mlps)Release date: 2007-09-03; Music CD
Best price: $34.93
Price in other shops: