Rise Up Like the Sun
Encyclopedia
Rise Up Like The Sun is an electric folk
album released in 1978 by the Albion Band. The album is in part a collaboration between John Tams
on vocals and melodeon and Ashley Hutchings
on electric bass. This is not the first album on which the two worked together but it remains the most fulfilling for listeners. To build the sound Hutchings brought in two of his former compatriots from Fairport Convention
, Dave Mattacks
on drums and tambourine and Simon Nicol
on vocals and electric and acoustic guitars. In addition another ex-member of Fairport, Richard Thompson, contributed songs and backing vocals. Having assembled the principal contributors and an ambiance that encouraged their friends to drop in, Hutchings gave Tams the freedom to act as the project's musical director. They were joined by Philip Pickett
on shawms, bagpipes, curtals and trumpet, Pete Bullock on synthesiser, piano, clarinet, sax, and organ, Michael Gregory on percussion, Ric Sanders on violin and violectra and Graeme Taylor
on electric and acoustic guitars. Kate McGarrigle
, Julie Covington
, Linda Thompson
, Pat Donaldson
, Martin Carthy
, Andy Fairweather-Low
and Dave Bristow make guest appearances.
The album was produced by Tams and Joe Boyd
, and engineered by Vic Gamm. It was recorded at Olympic Studio No. 1 and mixed at CBS Studios.
, Julie Covington
and Linda Thompson
) and gravelly guitars. "Poor Old Horse" was released as a single in 1978 and named as "Record of the Week" by the BBC's Simon Bates, but made no impact on the charts.
In music magazine surveys, Rise Up Like the Sun often appears among the top three English folk-rock albums of all time, alongside Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief and Shirley Collins
' No Roses
.
This was the last album to be produced by this line-up of the Albion Band. John Tams and Graeme Taylor went on to form Home Service
. Philip Pickett became one of Britain's most respected scholars of medieval music. Ric Sanders went on to join Fairport Convention
and both Nicol and Mattacks returned to the Fairport fold.
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
album released in 1978 by the Albion Band. The album is in part a collaboration between John Tams
John Tams
John Tams is an English actor, singer, songwriter, composer and musician.- Folk musician :John Tams was a member of Derbyshire folk group Muckram Wakes in the 1970s, then worked with Ashley Hutchings as singer and melodeon-player on albums including Son of Morris On, and as a member of the...
on vocals and melodeon and Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...
on electric bass. This is not the first album on which the two worked together but it remains the most fulfilling for listeners. To build the sound Hutchings brought in two of his former compatriots from Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
, Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks is a rock and folk drummer. Best known for his work with Fairport Convention, Mattacks has also worked both as a session musician, and as a performance artist...
on drums and tambourine and Simon Nicol
Simon Nicol
Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is a guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founder member of British folk rock, or electric folk group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band...
on vocals and electric and acoustic guitars. In addition another ex-member of Fairport, Richard Thompson, contributed songs and backing vocals. Having assembled the principal contributors and an ambiance that encouraged their friends to drop in, Hutchings gave Tams the freedom to act as the project's musical director. They were joined by Philip Pickett
Philip Pickett
Philip Pickett is an English musician, recorder player and director of early music ensembles, notably The New London Consort.- Student days :...
on shawms, bagpipes, curtals and trumpet, Pete Bullock on synthesiser, piano, clarinet, sax, and organ, Michael Gregory on percussion, Ric Sanders on violin and violectra and Graeme Taylor
Graeme Taylor
Graeme Taylor is a British electric guitarist.Taylor played lead guitar with 1970s medieval/rock band Gryphon, and leading folk rock bands including the Albion Band and Home Service...
on electric and acoustic guitars. Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle, CM was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle....
, Julie Covington
Julie Covington
Julie Covington is an English singer and actress, best known for recording the original version of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina".-Career:...
, Linda Thompson
Linda Thompson (singer)
Linda Thompson is a British singer. Born Linda Pettifer in Hackney, Thompson became one of the most recognised names—and voices—in the British folk rock movement of the 1970s and 1980s, in collaboration with her former husband and fellow British folk rock musician, guitarist Richard...
, Pat Donaldson
Pat Donaldson
Pat Donaldson is a bass guitarist.The 2i's Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street, Soho was a legendary hang-out for early rock artists of Britain. It was here that Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and Terry Dean played. Albert Lee and Pat Donaldson played here while they were members of Bob Xavier and the...
, Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
, Andy Fairweather-Low
Andy Fairweather-Low
Andrew Fairweather Low is a Welsh guitarist, songwriter and vocalist. He was a founding member of 1960s British pop band, Amen Corner, and in recent years has toured extensively with Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings.-Early career:Fairweather Low first found fame as a...
and Dave Bristow make guest appearances.
The album was produced by Tams and Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is an American record producer and former owner of the Witchseason production company. Boyd was instrumental in launching the careers of Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and The Incredible String Band.-Career:...
, and engineered by Vic Gamm. It was recorded at Olympic Studio No. 1 and mixed at CBS Studios.
Critical response
The reviews for Rise Up Like the Sun were mostly positive, although opinion was divided on some tracks, such as "The Gresford Disaster". For many, though, the outstanding track of the whole album is "Poor Old Horse", building up from a single fiddle over six minutes to a massed choir with high voices (Kate McGarrigleKate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle, CM was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle....
, Julie Covington
Julie Covington
Julie Covington is an English singer and actress, best known for recording the original version of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina".-Career:...
and Linda Thompson
Linda Thompson (singer)
Linda Thompson is a British singer. Born Linda Pettifer in Hackney, Thompson became one of the most recognised names—and voices—in the British folk rock movement of the 1970s and 1980s, in collaboration with her former husband and fellow British folk rock musician, guitarist Richard...
) and gravelly guitars. "Poor Old Horse" was released as a single in 1978 and named as "Record of the Week" by the BBC's Simon Bates, but made no impact on the charts.
In music magazine surveys, Rise Up Like the Sun often appears among the top three English folk-rock albums of all time, alongside Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief and Shirley Collins
Shirley Collins
Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE is a British folksinger who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s...
' No Roses
No Roses
No Roses is an album by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band. It was recorded at Sound Techniques, and Air Studios in London, in the summer of 1971. It was produced by Sandy Roberton and Ashley Hutchings...
.
This was the last album to be produced by this line-up of the Albion Band. John Tams and Graeme Taylor went on to form Home Service
Home Service
Home Service are a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack, which is usually considered one of the finest products of the electric folk...
. Philip Pickett became one of Britain's most respected scholars of medieval music. Ric Sanders went on to join Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
and both Nicol and Mattacks returned to the Fairport fold.
Track listing
- "Ragged Heroes" (John Tams): Written as a way of announcing that the songs and tunes would be a rallying-call for English folk music. Towards the end, Martin Carthy's counter-melody makes for some very interesting harmonies.
- "Poor Old Horse" (Traditional sea shanty): Usually called "The Dead Horse". First collected in 1917. The song was sung at the end of the first month on board ship. Sailors would make a horse figure from rags and tar, hoist it to the yard-arm, then cut it loose and let it drift out to sea. The verse about "Sally in the garden" seems to have drifted in from a different unrelated shanty.
- "Afro Blue/Danse Royale" (Santamaria/Anon medieval): An instrumental track combining Latin-jazz (John Coltrane, 1963) on violin, with a medieval French dance tune on bagpipes. Only the folk-rock band GryphonGryphon (band)Gryphon were a British progressive rock band of the 1970s, best known for their unusual Medieval sound and instrumentation.-Career:Multi-instrumentalist Richard Harvey and his fellow Royal College of Music graduate Brian Gulland, a woodwind player, began the group as an all-acoustic ensemble that...
had ever attempted anything like this before. - "Ampleforth/Lay Me Low" (Trad/Trad): A fiddle tune followed by a hymn from the American non-conformist New Lebanon Church of 1838.
- "Time To Ring Some Changes": Richard Thompson did not record his song until "Small Town Romance" (1984). Although he was present for the recording of "Poor Old Horse", he does not appear on this track.
- "House In The Country" (Stewart): The travelling Stewarts of Blairgowrie wrote this song about the difficulty of finding a place to live. It acquired extra resonance during the 1990s when it was sung to highlight the problem of homelessness among the young.
- "The Primrose": Several tunes with this title originate in the 1880s. The one that survived was first recorded by Jimmy Shand in the 1950's and by Oscar Woods in 1968. The first half uses John Kirkpatrick's version and the second half uses Rod Stradling's version.
- "Gresford DisasterGresford DisasterThe Gresford Disaster was one of Britain's worst coal mining disasters and mining accidents. It occurred on September 22, 1934 at Gresford Colliery near Wrexham, in north-east Wales, when 266 men died. Only eleven bodies were ever recovered from the mine....
": On September 22, 1934 265 colliers died at the Gresford mine in North Wales. Ewan MacCollEwan MacCollEwan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
sang this song on" "Shuttle and Cage" (1957). - "The Postman's Knock": A traditional song associated with Morris dancing. The Albion Band recorded it again on their album Lark Rise To Candleford(1980).
- "Pain and Paradise": Written by John Tams, inspired by another sea shanty, "Riding on a Donkey"
- "Lay Me Low": A different sound mix of track 4.
- "Rainbow Over The Hill": This Richard Thompson song was recorded in 1978 but not released until 1992. Linda Thompson sings the lead.
- Note: tracks 9 to 12 are bonus tracks that were not on the original vinyl or CD releases, but were included on the re-mastered Fledg'ling Records issue of the album, in 2003.