Anne Briggs – Anne Briggs (Topic Treasures Series Deluxe CD Reissue)
Topic Records – 22nd March 2019 (Vinyl release – 12 April)
It may not have escaped your notice that Topic Records are celebrating their 80th birthday ( as reported here). Part of the celebrations includes the re-issue of classic Topic albums with extra sleeve notes, new photographs and original artwork, and if Topic is important to the history and documentation of traditional music, then the long-overdue reissue of Anne Briggs’ eponymous album is one of their most important releases.
Nigh on sixty years ago, the music world was almost awash with revivals, discoveries and appropriations. This melting pot was all to the good but some were more superficial than others and even within musical genres and sub-genres, there were plenty of examples of people jumping on the next bandwagon for but a short distance ‘til the next one swerved around the corner.
For traditional and folk music the story was much the same except perhaps for a sense of political attachment not seen in commercially-driven popular culture. Traditional and folk music of the British Isles has a long history and is vast in its scope – bucolic and industrial, love and death, justice and injustice. In that period from the mid-fifties through to the early seventies, against, or rather as part of the melting pot of popular (and not-so-popular) music, British folk shifted, from the industrial to the rural, and in different ways from rock-based rhythms to pure, unadorned solo voices.
Of course, this is all easy to see from the distance of half a century or more, but if a student of traditional music was looking to capture the essence of the unadorned, some may say ‘true’ forms, then there are only a small number you can turn to. And top of that list would be Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins.
 The importance of Anne Briggs, along with others pursuing the traditional path at the time, is that they were picking up strands from here, parts of ballads from there and the tunes from elsewhere. It was also a period when the versions learned in one region may be more readily compared with that of another by listening to the songs being released on Topic Records, and not by comparing the notations of Cecil Sharp and others in the then-lofty heights of the EFDSS. Anne noted that what she and her fellow singers were doing was picking ‘up the threads of the tradition – but’ she says ‘other than a few old recordings we’ve not got anything else to go on’.
Many will know these songs as they have since passed into what may be termed, at the risk of sounding pretentious, the repertoire. Perhaps you owned the original album and need little introduction? For those of you to whom Anne Briggs is an unknown, then this is the way in. The voice is unadorned in technique, the story left to tell itself and from the very start of the opening number, Blackwater Side, you know this is special.
At times an instrument offers simple accompaniment, a light foil to the power of the voice, a device to imply the momentum, or simply a backdrop against which to tell the tale. There is, of course, the guitar on Blackwater Side and Go Your Way, but Willie O’Winsbury is the first of three tracks that feature the bouzouki, played on here by both Anne and Johnny Moynihan.
The bouzouki was a rare occurrence particularly in folk music of the time but given the interest in traditions and instruments from other parts of the world at the time, this should not be too much of a surprise in retrospect.
If there is a tour-de-force amongst this very fine collection, it is Young Tambling. This ballad-story is well-known now but at the time of recording was only known in fragments. AL Lloyd, who produced the album, said that he ‘cobbled this set together, in part from Child, in part from recent collection’.
But listen to it. It is over ten minutes long. It is not sung at a whisper. It is the same voice that sings The Snow It Melts the Soonest at nearly two and a half minutes, but Tambling is a full-length narrative, without loss, without variance. Ten minutes.
The other major aspect of Anne Briggs’ work that cannot be ignored but is not clear at the point of this recording, is the connection with Bert Jansch. Anne’s recorded output was not prolific – a few tracks on a couple of albums and a solo EP between 1963 and 1966 and then nothing until this album in 1971. But – written in capitals perhaps – as Rob Young describes in Electric Eden (2010) ‘she seemed content to act as an invisible catalyst, sprinkling traditional songs and her own compositions among more prominent artists like gold dust’.
And to Bert Jansch, friend and one-time lover, she gave/taught/wrote/co-wrote Go Your Way, Reynardine and Blackwater Side.
All-in-all, this is one of the most significant recordings of the period. A tribute to the recording techniques of Sean Davies and the production of AL Lloyd, a tribute to the work of Topic Records and a tribute to Anne Briggs. This is an important album documenting an important time in the cycle of traditional music. Nearly fifty years on, Anne is still being discovered, listened to and learned from. This is music to pass on to the next generations.
Anne Briggs – Signed Test Pressing Giveaway
 Courtesy of Topic Records, we have a rare test pressing of the Topic Treasure forthcoming re-issue of Anne Briggs’ eponymous classic debut solo album, signed by Anne herself.
To enter simply email us here: info@folkradio.co.uk. In your email include “Topic” in the subject along with your name and address in the body of the message. Last entries by 10 am on Friday 12 April 2019.
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