Trad Folk – Making a Comeback
Frank Gutch Jr.
Posted On November 4, 2016
As if to bolster my opinion that trad folk is ready to make a comeback, Brit duo Hickory Signals has made its way across the water and I could not be happier. I have the past year been singing the praises of Down Under’s Kate & Ruth, Anna Cordell, and Angharad Drake, wondering when the UK contingent would chime in. Looks like they have already done so and are just awaiting discovery.
I lived through the trad folk movement of the mid-seventies. I found Fairport Convention, both the Judy Dyble and Sandy Denny-fronted configurations, and Steeleye Span and others of note and was carried away with the melding of centuries of music into a new modern form. Maddy Prior was a favorite as was Jacqui McShee (Pentangle) and Shirley Collins. Exciting days, musically.
Well, the excitement is back. Not only is the Down Under scene moving right along but Hickory Signals is kicking it up a notch in the UK. The duo consists of Adam Ronchetti and Laura Ward and if I said shades of Sandy Denny, would that make you listen? It may only be shades but it is enough. A little trip through the band’s latest EP/Mini-LP (Noise of the Waters) shows a Laura Ward ready for primetime, in fact. The use of flute on the early tracks (“Noise of the Waters” and “Here I Am”) is a stroke of musical genius— in fact, the arrangements of all songs are quite impressive. The songs float from past to present to past seamlessly, the styles coinciding almost without notice.
As an experiment, I listened to the EP once through with eyes closed. It did indeed take me back to those wonderful days when Steeleye Span and Fotheringay and Fairport dominated my turntable. There was a feel I have so long missed and a beauty crucial to the trad folk movement back then, something hard to describe. But it reverberates in my soul.
I have sandwiched Noise of the Waters among those already found and placed it where it can be found at a moments notice. Hickory Signals gives me the same rush I got when I found Kate & Ruth and Anna Cordell and Angharad Drake. There is a resurgence, I thought then. This reinforces my claim.
Not on the EP, but this is what they do live.
