Georgia Shackleton - Harry's Seagull (2023) Hi-Res

Here's the debut solo record from the Norfolk singer and fiddler Georgia Shackleton, who for the last eight years has been charming audiences in company with her colleagues Nic Zuppardi and Aaren Bennett in The Shackleton Trio. She's always openly admitted taking much of her inspiration from the folk songs and tunes of her native county, which have directly informed her own writing too. It's only to be expected, therefore, that Harry's Seagull should include an example of this aspect of Georgia's creativity, and so it proves with the disc's title tune, an affectionate homage to the iconic Norfolk singer which is neatly conjoined to a Yarmouth Hornpipe (one of many so named within the local step-dancing tradition) which follows Harry's own song What Will Become Of England? (plus ?a change!).

But Georgia also pays homage to other key Norfolk source singers with her choice of songs. Each one receives an insightful and keenly felt performance in Georgia's skilled reinterpretation. I could single out the beautiful, utterly charming Come, Little Leaves, which Georgia has sourced from Walter Pardon of Knapton (who was rightly so proud of this and other songs in his "Bright Golden Store"). Or Georgia's tender account of The Blacksmith, its gorgeous weaving melody accompanied on fiddle with harmonium drone, given here in the version collected by Peter Kennedy from traveller Phoebe Smith at her Suffolk home. Or the delicately enunciated skipping trip through Rambling Robin, an airy adaptation of Peter Bellamy's setting of a local broadsheet tale. Or the urgent syncopations of Yarmouth Fisherman's Song, which derives from a verité account of hard life at sea written by a shipmate of Harry's father. Or the blustery plucked arpeggios of Windy Old Weather, an amalgamation of versions by both Harry Cox and fellow-fisherman Sam Larner. Or the spirited song of rejection Twenty, Eighteen which - unusually for the time - was collected by a woman (Lucy Broadwood) from the singing of a woman.

Georgia's debut solo CD enjoys an appealingly as-live ambience, perfectly conjured by producer Aaren who is well accustomed to her style and sound, and he enables her own sheer joie-de-vivre and enthusiasm for her craft to shine through the ether. The disc is simply but attractively packaged too (nice artwork by Andy Stanhope). It's impressive on several counts: not only in Georgia's pure and clear voice, sprightly singing style and finely tuned, expressive fiddle playing with its idiomatic sweep and characteristic use of pizzicato, but also in that she's proving herself an ideal torch-bearer, heir to the tradition inasmuch as she is delivering her own special interpretations of the songs, much as a traditional source singer would stamp his/her own personality on the material. Harry Cox, of course, is held up as a key example of this "folk process", but as Georgia and her researches clearly demonstrate, there are many other important East Anglian figures who deserve our attention, and her listeners are inspired to seek out the original source recordings for themselves.. The only criticism I can envisage of this wholly delightful disc is that at just 24 minutes it's way too short.