Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings - Parlour Ballads

Parlour Ballads is the new album from Jon Boden, a piano led record full
of sentimental ballads that tie together parlour music and folk song
Parlour Ballads seeks to awaken the sound of the old, well loved, slightly out of
tune domestic piano and to reunite it with (or introduce it to) songs that might
feel glad of the acquaintance.
"Parlour Music" is a genre that has been much derided over the centuries. Its
heyday was the Victorian era when many middle- class houses had pianos and
many children who could sight- read piano scores to a high level, musical literacy
being highly prized. Parlour songs were composed and disseminated through
sheet music, to be performed in private and public houses alike, but with an air of
respectability not found in the music hall repertoire. This practice continued well
into the twentieth century until technological advances supplanted the printed
stave as the primary means of musical transmission.
"My great- great- grandfather Alphonse Cary (1848-1922) ran a music shop in
Newbury and would, for a fee, perform the latest parlour songs, recording
himself (accompanied on piano by a colleague) onto wax cylinder there and then for
the customer to take away. Sadly I have yet to fnd any surviving cylinders of his
voice.
I have been toying with the idea of a piano- based folk album for many years.
Although I consider myself a competent- at- best pianist (my sight reading would
certainly not have passed muster in the middle class Victorian parlour described
above) I adore playing piano and have probably spent as many thousands of hours
trying to get to grips with it as I have the fddle or the guitar. In particular I love using
it to accompany slow, sentimental ballads such as several of the tracks on this
album"
Jon Boden is the stand out performer of his generation of traditional folk music,
but he is an artist whose repertoire extends far beyond the boundaries of the
genre.
Most recognisably he is the lead singer of the multi- award winning folk
juggernaut Bellowhead , headlining shows at the Royal Albert Hall and selling
hundreds of thousands of records. Jon also performs in his duo Spiers & Boden
with John Spiers and has most recently toured with Eliza Carthy. Alongside his
solo work and shows with the Remnant Kings he has been commissioned to
compose and arrange for the likes of the Royal Shakespeare company.
Parlour Ballads was produced by long time collaborator Andy Bell and features
The Remnant Kings - Sam Sweeney, Ben Nicholls, Rob Harbron, Sally Hawkins &
M G Boulter. Paul Sartin was a key member of the Remnant Kings for ten years
and was involved in the early developments of this album and we can hear his
infuence across the record.
CD Tracks: On One April Morning / Bonny Bunch of Roses / Clock O' Clay / Merry
Mountain Child / Mortal Cares / Oggie Man / Old Brown's Daughter / Prentice
Boy / Danny Deever / Rose of Allendale / London Waterman