The Doors Forum

These tracks really ROCK with some folk sensibilities!! Five Stars!!!
Oysterband is a fantastic band without June, but when they get together...masterpieces fall like rain!

June Tabor & Oysterband-"Ragged Kingdom" 2011


Son David
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XILzqPc5 ... re=related




Twenty-one years ago, June Tabor and Oysterband got together to record what is now recognised as an English folk-rock classic. It wasn't exclusively a folk album, though there were some traditional tracks, but rather an eclectic, powerful reworking of anything from Lou Reed to Shane McGowan. Now, at long last, comes the followup that so many of us have been asking for, and it's no disappointment. The energy is still there, along with the desire to startle and experiment, but so is a new maturity and emotional depth, and even greater variety. The traditional songs include Bonnie Bunch of Roses, in which the stomping backing is never allowed to overshadow Tabor's no-nonsense storytelling; then there's a glorious melodeon and fiddle-backed treatment of Fountains Flowing, that song of parting and grief, and there's delicate, unaccompanied vocal harmony singing on the Scottish lament (When I Was No But) Sweet Sixteen. The contemporary songs range from a fiddle-backed stomp through Dylan's Seven Curses, through to a thoughtful, gutsy reworking of PJ Harvey's That Was My Veil, and a pained, acoustic version of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, which features a powerful duet between Tabor and John Jones, who come together again for a very English treatment of the bittersweet Dark End of the Street. This was worth waiting for. --Robin Denselow, The Guardian

This is one reunion that works so magnificently it even overshadows the magical memories of their previous collaboration 21 years ago. --Colin Irwin, fRoots

Glorious. (FIVE STARS) --Mojo






Freedom And Rain remains one of the finest collaborative albums of the past three decades. Bringing together the immense, individual talents of the sublime English folk singer June Tabor and the raucous roots rebels Oysterband, it produced something quite new and enduring. When they reunited last year to perform at fRoots Magazine's 30th birthday party at The Roundhouse, they felt the chemistry spark again. And 21 years on, they've made the brand new Ragged Kingdom, a brilliant, belated follow-up that mixes the traditional with the contemporary in startling fashion. ''June Tabor & Oysterband - a marriage made in heaven'' - Rolling Stone.

If My Love Loves Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IboF59- ... re=related

Bonny Bunch Of Roses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI7MrS3jgyE

This has to be the highest regarded album/CD I've seen in 50 years of serious listening. Every English language newspaper worldwide has given it 5 stars and I've never experienced such unanimity before. This is certainly the best folk-rock album since 1969's "Leige & Lief" and I think it surpasses that. Songs Like Dylan's ancient "Seven Curses" are performed with a venom even BD couldn't have imagined. The version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" just leaves people breathless and bewildered: who'd have thought such an overpowering song was hiding behind Joy Division's frenetic thrashing? There are no fillers on this. I'm now up to perhaps my 80th listening in under 80 days and it all still sounds fresh and staggering. If this doesn't win the UK's annual Mercury Prize then the judges are deaf, daft or cowardly.


I haven't been this excited in a newly discovered album in years..I have chills!!

They can get quiet and soulfully deep...just as Sandy Denny could.

Love Will Tear Us Apart
(covering Joy Division's original-- seriously?! Damn!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCgWqoyG6qc

2011 fROOTS Critics award--Album Of The Year--"Ragged Kingdom"

And June TAbor is:
BBC2 2012 Folk Artist of The Year

She has been a treasure for the UK & the world....born 1947 and she releases album of the year in 2011...not bad!


Here is a brilliant album from 1980...





Flash Company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y7O-6_zwc8

Unicorns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNmPgZoj ... re=related

Spare & Beautiful...

from "AQABA"




Where are You Tonight I Wonder...live BBC radio...Peel sessions I believe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=perCiNp5 ... re=related

Acoustic guitar album version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyQX8MMveXk

For those without any Oysterband music (sad really! [;)]) here is a widely distributed & free d/l of an unreleased 2 CD bootleg ----a brilliant live soundboard from 1991.

June Tabor &
The Oyster Band

First Avenue, Minneapolis 1991

http://time-has-told-me.blogspot.com/20 ... chive.html

a taste of live "Mississippi"..this is from 2011, but you get the idea!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBhLEt5DZ3o

When I'm Up I Can't Get Down!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNjQFbC_lQk

Oysterband

Oysterband (originally The Oyster Band) is an English electric folk or folk rock band formed in Canterbury in or around 1976.




The band formed in parallel to Fiddler's Dram, and under the name Oyster Ceilidh Band played purely as a dance band at first. The name Oyster comes from the group's early association with the coastal town of Whitstable in East Kent, known for the quality of its oysters. Their first album, released under the Oyster Ceilidh Band name, was Jack's Alive (1980) on the Dingles record label. Subsequent albums, as Oyster Band (sometimes The Oyster Band) were released on the band's own Pukka Music label: English Rock 'n' Roll: The Early Years 1800–1850 and Lie Back and Think of England, followed by Liberty Hall and 20 Golden Tie-Slackeners.



The lineup of the band changed over these albums. The first recorded line-up was:

* Cathy Lesurf - vocals;
* John Jones - melodeon, vocals;
* Alan Prosser - guitars, violin;
* Chris Taylor - guitar, bouzouki, harmonica, one-row melodeon, mandola;
* Ian Telfer - violin, English concertina, saxophone;
* Chris Wood - bass guitar;
* Will Ward - bassoon, recorders, crumhorn, keyboards

When Chris Wood left the band to go travelling in Canada, he was replaced on bass guitar by returning founder member Ian Kearey. Cathy Lesurf subsequently left to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band, and Will Ward also departed so that by the time they recorded Lie Back and Think of England the personnel had settled down to John Jones, Ian Kearey, Alan Prosser and Ian Telfer. For the album Step Outside they added Russell Lax on drums. Step Outside mixed self-penned songs, often with a political theme, with reworkings of traditional standards such as Hal-an-Tow.




Later history

Oysterband, Cropredy Festival, Oxfordshire, 12 August 2004

After the 1987 release Wide Blue Yonder Kearey left the band to be replaced by Chopper (real name Ray Cooper). Subsequent albums included Ride, Little Rock to Leipzig and the June Tabor collaboration Freedom and Rain. Following this the band name changed to Oysterband. Drummer Lee Partis (who for several years was billed only by his forename) replaced Russell Lax for 1992's Deserters before Holy Bandits in 1993 propelled the band to the forefront of a booming folk rock scene alongside bands such as The Levellers.

In the nineties the band adopted a more overtly political stance, recording the harder The Shouting End of Life and collaborating with Chumbawamba to record "Farewell to the Crown", released as the b-side of the Tubthumping single. But recent releases Deep Dark Ocean, Here I Stand, Rise Above and Meet You There have seen the band return to a softer, more melodic sound while recent tours under the banner The Big Session have seen the band offer exposure to several young, emerging folk musicians like Dan Donnelly, The Handsome Family as well as veterans such as June Tabor. James O'Grady (Uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute, vocals) regularly appeared on the Oysters' albums and tours in the last few years.





John Jones, James O'Grady and Ian Telfer provided vocals and instrumentation on Chumbawamba's album A Singsong and a Scrap, and Oysterband provided vocals for the song "Hull or Hell" on The Boy Bands Have Won.

In 2007, long standing drummer Lee Partis took a sabbatical break to be able to concentrate on his work as a psychotherapist, counselling in prisons. In August 2008, he confirmed he would be leaving the band permanently. The band then appointed Dilwyn Davies as replacement drummer.

Following a 30th anniversary concert in December 2008 the band took a six-month sabbatical, during which John Jones and Chopper both made solo albums.

The band returned to the studio in 2011 teaming up once again with June Tabor releasing "Ragged Kingdom" in September at a sell out Concert at Londons Queen Elizabeth Hall. For at least some dates on the Ragged Kingdom tour, they are also joined on bass and guitar by Al Scott, who produced the album. On 8 February 2012 June Tabor and Oysterband won Best Traditional Song, Best Album and Best Group at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for Ragged Kingdom, with Tabor also winning Folk Singer of the Year.





Sail On By
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL1GEHAQ ... re=related

The Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-aPUrGq ... re=related


________________________________________________





I highly recommend Oysterband's "The Oxford Girl & Other Stories" CD.....
a brilliant album.

Along with a really great alt version of "When I'm Up I Can't Get Down" it opens with a wonderful song...

"The Early days Of A Better Nation"....a quote engraved on the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament...and oft quoted by Alasdair Gray.




The Early Days Of A Better Nation"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTAh7OPNC20


I fall asleep with the TV on
Wake with an ache it's another week gone
And consider how my light was spent
And where it was that the real thing went
I asked a wise man for advice
I told him once and I told him twice;
My life is one long damage limitation
He smacked me hard around the head
He handed me a card that read:
Work like you were
Living in the early days of a better nation
Living in the early days of a better nation

Play that tune again! I cried
It's dead and gone the band replied
But as they slowly tried it through
The hands remembered what they had to do
Give it poke and give it licks
The name of the tune is Laying The Bricks
I Stood outside the Albert Hall
And wept, and wrote upon the wall;
Work like you were
Living in the early days of a better nation
Living in the early days of a better nation

We take the water to the tree
She says, Now do the same for me
It takes your sweat as well as art
To dig a channel for the human heart
There is no garden of delight
Unless you weed it day or night
Don't leave your life a lifelong long vacation
I hear her whisper when we meet
And when I crawl between the sheets, she says;
Work like you were
Living in the early days of a better nation
Living in the early days of a better nation