Child Ballads
Child Ballads is a deceptively wispy collection of old English and Scottish folk songs, a collaboration sprouted a few years ago when Mitchell and Hamer discovered their shared fascination with the British folk canon established by a Harvard professor in the late 1800s.
Mitchell and Hamer make their mark on these songs with delicate aplomb.
The Child Ballads are a portfolio collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland (plus the ballads' American variants) assembled by Francis James Child and originally published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in ten volumes between 1882 and 1898, a group of ancient melodies and lyrics that are at the very center of traditional folk music, and versions of these songs have been recorded and reimagined countless times by countless singers and performers.
Mitchell and Hamer deliver some famous Child ballads straight up, with a transatlantic twist, writes <strong>Neil Spencer</strong>