HEDY WEST - Untitled
Fledg’ling Records FLED3110
This is the second release by Fledg’ling Records of previously unissued Hedy West material – From Grandmaw And Me was released in 2018. The original tracks were recorded for an album in Germany in 1979 but were never released. Notes on the card cover are virtually non-existent other than to give a track listing, production details and acknowledgments. The booklet gives details of Hedy’s history but not of the material on the album. However, the sleeve states that “Full song transcriptions and further notes can be found at www.fledglingrecords.co.uk”. Good luck with that – we certainly couldn’t find any such thing, which comes as rather a disappointment.
The album is itself something of a peculiarity. It is an album for the completist – it is not Hedy’s most striking work and does not stand well against the previous Fledg’ling release or the Fellside double CD release of 2011. There are 11 tracks and they are an incongruous mixture: from classic folk songs like The Plains Of Waterloo and Young Edmund (In The Lowlands Low) to the German Der Graben or a country music track like Hobo’s Lullaby. With no notes to inform the listener, one wonders what the album would have been intending to present or convey. Hedy’s voice is more strident than usual, although both her interpretation and banjo playing are of a high quality as one would expect. I mostly enjoyed the CD, but it is one for the specialist, I think.
www.fledglingrecords.co.uk
Tom Brown
This review appeared in Issue 129 of The Living Tradition magazine