Product Description

Anne Briggs' recording career lasted from 1963 to 1973, after which she largely withdrew from public performance, so the 1990 compilation CLASSIC ANNE BRIGGS came as a revelation to a generation of folk music fans more familiar with successors like Maddy Prior, Sandy Denny and June Tabor. That album gathered together her entire output for the Topic label. The ANNE BRIGGS album of 1971 was combined with her '60s output: two songs she contributed to THE IRON MUSE project, fourmore from the conceptual BIRD IN THE BUSH album plus her own EP THE HAZARDS OF LOVE.
In the '90s she made a short-lived return to live performance in the company of Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. Always plagued by stage fright, theseappearances were clearly nerve-wracking and the supportive enthusiasm of audiences was not enough to persuade her to revive her singing career. A COLLECTION presents all her Topicmaterial in order of release, but this time adds superb versions of "She Moves Through The Fair" and "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" first heard on two volumes of THE DECCA EDINBURGH FOLK FESTIVAL.

Track Listing

1. Recruited Collier
2. Doffing Mistress
3. She Moves Through The Fair
4. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
5. Lowlands
6. My Bonny Boy
7. Polly Vaughan
8. Rosemary Lane
9. Gathering Rushes In The Month Of May
10. Whirly Whorl
11. Stonecutter Boy
12. Martinmas Time
13. Blackwater Side
14. Snow It Melts The Soonest
15. Willie O' Winsbury
16. Go Your Way
17. Thorneymoor Woods
18. Cuckoo
19. Reynardine
20. Young Tambling
21. Living By The Water
22. Maa Bonny Lad

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22815 in Music
• Released on: 1999-05-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Customer Reviews

A voice from my past
It must be more than 40 years ago that I bought 'The Topic Sampler' (that's what they were called before some marketing bod thought of 'compilation'). It had a great selection from Topic's catalogue but the one that has always stayed in my mind was Anne Briggs' version of 'The Bonny Boy'. I've always preferred unaccompanied singing, mainly because I'm unable to sing to an instrument, but this was something else. She sang simply but with perfect pitch, not often heard in those days of earnest middle-class, middle-of-the-road singers. She sounded as if the song was learnt, not from a book, but from her own experience. Over the years that LP has been in the rack, occasionally played for that one song.

So now I have 'A Collection', and I'm back in love with that voice. Maybe if she'd carried on the commercial pressure would have changed her style, so I'm half glad she retreated (rather than retired) when she did. When I think back on all those long-haired blonde lassies who struggled so hard to sound as if they believed in the words they were singing, I truly think that Anne Briggs was in a different league altogether. Maybe one of my Ma's sayings fitted her best; 'You should sing as if you can taste the words.' Anne Briggs certainly did just that.

Just another young kid from the floor...........
I can remember this like it was yesterday - I'm sure that the venue was "The Scot's Hoose" in Cambridge Circus, London, circa 1964/5 (ish), and it was a Bert Jansch gig. Invited up to sing as a floor singer, she just stepped up from the audience without much of an introduction. The place was full of noise as usual, beer glasses being cleared etc. and no one took a great deal of notice at first, but Anne battled on and the audience soon began to shut up - by the time she ended the song (sorry, can't remember what it was) you could have heard a pin drop. She totally nailed it. Everybody who was there knew that this was the real deal, and I've been listening ever since.

Buy this disc and put it in the 'special' or 'definitive' section of your record collection; bring it out from time to time, give it a play and get lost in the authenticity of her singing. It never fails to impress.

If you've looking for a quick review this is it.
I've never been into folk, but I found this album a delightful collection of wonderful music at it's most stripped back and purest.