1. Join us in the Dance (Ann & Dave) A seasonal song to celebrate mid summer

2. Muesli (Dave) Isn't it funny how progress just goes round in circles.

3. Keep the Dark away (Ann) A song for Autumn and the time around Halloween

4.The Wizard Stone (Dave) A song of magic, good and bad, with true love victorious in the end.

5. Lonewolf (Ann) The inspirations for this song were many, a book, another song and a number of different people all woven together.

6. Nancy Shanty (Dave) I haven't divorced him for this one yet!!!

7. Sing to Welcome back the Green Man (Ann) A drive in the Shropshire countryside in the late spring sunshine following a heavy shower lead to this song.

8. Failed Blues (Dave) How can you write a blues song when you're Happy?

9. Scare-D-Crow (Dave) A true story told to Dave by a crow

10. Friday Night Motorway Blues (Ann) When we first met we were living 152 miles apart. We got to know the motorways well!

11.  The Farmer and the Flea (Dave) Just a bit of fun

12. Banbury Town (Ann) We met at Banbury festival in 2001 and this song actually started life as a discussion idea for a workshop we were running at one of the later Banbury Festivals.

13. Walsall (Dave) Another progress song this one about my second home town.

14.Take a Little Drop to keep the Winter out (Ann) Good Advice at any time of year we feel.

15. Mr Cutpurse. (Dave) A tribute to all chancellors, past present and future.

16. Lullaby (Ann) I like the notion of being able to choose your dreams; I wrote
these for Dave and my two brothers.

17.Witches (Ann & Dave) Our most recent song. See the note to Song number
21 We finally got around to it.

18. Magic ? A song dealing with what is more likely to have been the reality of
being a witch

19. Mage Wars. (Dave) Another song of magic with the wonder of unicorns.

20. Another Scarecrow Song (Ann) No we aren't obsessed with them really!

Review

Ann & Dave Reader – SCARECROW (Own Label)

This accomplished Midlands-based duo deserve wider recognition for their work, which with the release of this CD will hopefully be faster in coming. However, unless you’ve frequented the festivals further south, you’re unlikely yet to have encountered Ann and Dave, although you may well have heard at a quality singaround the occasional song penned by either of them, for over the past few years they’ve written some fine ones. Ann (née Mathews) and Dave Reader teamed up after meeting at the Banbury Festival in 2001; prior to that, Ann (originally of Priory Hard, Southampton) and Dave (formerly of the celebrated West Midlands group The Laners) were both beavering away writing and performing their own songs. Now a permanent (and happily married) team, their individual writing and performing styles both contrast with and complement each other. Each is an interesting solo singer, yet their voices harmonise together uncannily well too (although their choice of harmonies is often strikingly imaginative and may sometimes sound more tentative than it in fact is). A significant proportion of this CD is acappella, but the value and effect of their skilled yet unfussy accompaniments (guitar and mandola), when used, should not be underestimated. All 21 of the songs here are self-penned (nine apiece and three jointly), and the idiom is predominantly folk-traditional rather than contemporary. Ann and Dave both clearly have a strong feel for folk tradition and many of their songs feel genuinely traditional (however that may be interpreted). Although each writer covers a broad spectrum of subject-matter and styling you could say that generally speaking Ann writes potently of folk traditions, customs, the seasons, nature and suchlike, whereas Dave deals in magic and mystery, gently humorous fable and cutting commentaries (in the latter category, Walsall – which uses the form of a street-seller’s cry to reflect on so-called “progress” – and the cryptically-titled Muesli are especially persuasive). A couple of tongue-in-cheek bluesy meditations and a pastiche shanty form the exceptions to the above rule. The opening round Join Us In The Dance is a celebration of midsummer, whereas Ann’s Keep The Dark Away is an exhortation to the spirit of the Hallowe’en time of autumn and Take A Little Drop To Keep The Winter Out is a delightful (and self-recommending!) piece of advice. Banbury Town is another of those catchy little broadside-style pieces you feel you’ve known for ages (and a bit reminiscent of Graeme Miles’ Yarm Fair). There are no less than three songs about scarecrows (an unhealthy obsession? Nah! they just make for good songs!); these range from the eerie, haunting title-song to Scare-D-Crow, which is described as “a true story told to Dave by a crow”, and the briefer Another Scarecrow Song which patters along more wistfully. The CD’s highlight for me, though, is the enigmatic Lullaby, which considers the notion of being able to choose one’s dreams; this song, together with Lonewolf in particular, reminded me strongly of the beautiful writing of Anne Lister. But Ann and Dave both have the knack of writing straightforwardly well-constructed songs couched in simple folk imagery (no tricky rhythms or complex metaphorical statements), and they’re the more powerful for all that. Two of the jointly-penned songs (Scarecrow and Witches), representing the first and most recent of their writing collaborations respectively, serve to demonstrate their consistency of vision over time. Performance-wise, there are occasional instances of slightly insecure vocal intonation, but these don’t get in the way of appreciating the high standard of the songwriting, and indeed (as with Ann’s earlier solo CD Stolen Kisses) I’m left feeling really puzzled as to why many of these songs aren’t more widely known within the folk corpus. Do try to hear this one, you’ll not regret it.

David Kidman

Ann : vocals , guitar

Dave: vocals, guitar and mandola

All songs written by Ann & Dave Reader as indicated above

Arranged by Ann & Dave Reader

Special Thanks to Jon Hayward for playing the fiddle.

  All Recording and Production by Alistair Gillies at AGP Studio, Shropshire - www.agpstudio.co.uk

  CD design from an idea by Ann & Dave Reader

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